Putin’s Remarks About Jews, Ukraine, And The Russian Orthodox Church Aren’t Anti-Semitic

His intent was actually to absolve Jews of the collective responsibility for Zelensky’s crimes and his radical ideological crusade against the Russian Orthodox Church that anti-Semites attribute to them solely due to their ethno-national and religious association with him.

Putin is once again being accused of anti-Semitism after his remarks about Jews, Ukraine, and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) that he shared during his annual Q&A session with the public in mid-December. The Mainstream Media is presenting this as proof that he’s Hitler 2.0 while pro-Resistance members of the Alt-Media Community claim that it’s proof that he’s secretly anti-Zionist even though he never lifted a finger to save their movement from recently being destroyed by Israel. Here’s what he said:

“You know, what is happening with regard to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is a unique situation. This is a gross, blatant violation of human rights, the rights of believers. The church is being torn apart right before everyone’s eyes. This is like execution by firing squad, and yet the world seems to ignore it.

I think those who engage in such actions will get it back. You mentioned that they are tearing things apart, and that is exactly what is happening. These people are not even atheists. Atheists are individuals who believe in the idea that there is no God, but this is their faith, their convictions and worldview.

But these are not atheists; they are people without any faith at all. They are ethnic Jews, but who has ever seen them in a synagogue? They are not Orthodox Christians either, since they do not attend churches. And they certainly are not followers of Islam, as they are unlikely to be seen in a mosque.

These are individuals without kith or kin. They do not care about anything that is dear to us and the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian people. Eventually, they will run away someday and go to the beach rather than to church. But that is their choice.

I believe that someday the people in Ukraine, and the majority of Ukrainians are still connected to Orthodoxy, will evaluate their actions accordingly.”

The point that Putin tried to convey was that Zelensky’s ethno-national identity, which he’s fiercely proud of, has nothing to do with his radical ideological crusade against the Russian Orthodox Church that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians follow. Despite considering himself to be Jewish, Zelensky doesn’t even attend synagogue, thus suggesting that he exploits his ethno-national identity as a shield to deflect from criticism of his anti-ROC and other policies on the false basis that such is supposedly anti-Semitic.

Putin is a proud lifelong philo-Semite as proven by his documented praise of Israel and Jews that readers can learn more about here, which collected dozens of his quotes about them from the official Kremlin website between 2000-2018. He was also Bibi’s guest of honor at January 2020’s Fighting Antisemitism Forum and was praised by former Prime Minister Bennett in October 2021 as “a very close and true friend of the State of Israel.” Neither would have bestowed these honors on him if he was an anti-Semite.

Lavrov got into trouble shortly after in May 2022 for claiming that speculation about Hitler’s Jewish ancestry “means absolutely nothing” in order to make the point that someone’s ethno-religious identity at birth doesn’t predetermine their political views later in life. Regardless of whether one agrees with the sensitive example that he used, the point itself is valid, and it’s what Putin sought to echo during his annual Q&A in late December by referencing Zelensky’s ethno-national identity.

As Lavrov said in his abovementioned interview, “The wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews. ‘Every family has its black sheep,’ as we say.” Likewise, Putin wanted to emphasize that Zelensky doesn’t represent his “kith or kin” since he’s tearing apart the ROC, which is something that Putin doesn’t believe that a God-fearing Jew would do. His remarks are therefore aimed at preventing people from negatively judging all Jews based on Zelensky’s radical ideological crusade.

If Putin was really an anti-Semite, then not only would he have never been invited by Bibi to the Fighting Antisemitism Forum nor been praised by Bennett as “a very close and true friend of the State of Israel”, but he also would have meaningfully supported the Resistance Axis against Israel. Instead, he sat back and let Israel destroy them, never doing anything meaningful to stop this. The only thing that Russia did was issue some sharp statements against Israel. Here are three background briefings about this policy:

* 4 October: “Russia & The Resistance Axis Will Always Fundamentally Disagree About The Future Of Palestine”

* 19 October: “Why Do False Perceptions About Russian Policy Towards Israel Continue To Proliferate?”

* 12 December: “Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis”

With these facts in mind coupled with the ones that were shared about his lifelong philo-Semitism as documented by the official Kremlin website, it’s therefore dishonest to describe Putin as an anti-Semite just because of how he conveyed his latest point about Zelensky. His intent was actually to absolve Jews of the collective responsibility for Zelensky’s crimes and his radical ideological crusade against the ROC that anti-Semites attribute to them solely due to their ethno-national and religious association with him.

Putin considers Zelensky to be a godless ideologue, not a God-fearing Jew, so he doesn’t want anti-Semites exploiting Zelensky’s ethnic Jewish identity to smear all Jews and possibly even justify attacks against them in the worst-case scenario on this false basis. Far from being anti-Semitic, his latest remarks about Jews, Ukraine, and the ROC were therefore arguably philo-Semitic even if one still believes that he could have made his point in a less controversial way.