BWhen he was sworn in on May 20, 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cited Israel as a model for defending his country. He reinforced this statement, which made headlines in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, a few months later when he received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Kyiv: “As a state, we can learn a lot from Israel, especially on security and defense issues. And we will definitely do that.” Selenksyj, who was born in 1978 to Jewish parents in the southern Ukrainian industrial city of Krivoy Rog, also tends to evoke the historical bond between Jews and Ukrainians in his speeches – most recently in December at the international “Kiev Jewish Forum ’, which since its inception in 2019 has been committed to deepening relations between the two peoples.
In the presence of Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog and several Israeli and Ukrainian ministers, Zelenskyj drew parallels between Ukrainians and Jews against the background of the concentration of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border: “We know what it’s like not to have your own state. We know what it means to defend one’s state and country, arms in hand, even at the cost of one’s life. Ukrainians and Jews alike value freedom, and they work equally to ensure that the future of our states is shaped according to our ideas and not according to what others want for us. Israel is often a role model for Ukraine.”
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