Putin apologized for Lavrov’s remark: Israel

Jerusalem, May 6 (UNI) Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has apologized after his foreign minister said that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood”, Israel says.
Putin made the apology in a call with Israeli PM Naftali Bennett, his office said in a statement, reports BBC.
Russia’s account of the conversation did not mention an apology.
Sergei Lavrov made the initial comments to try to justify Russia’s portrayal of Ukraine as “Nazi” despite the fact that its president is Jewish.
In reply to question on ‘how Russia can claim that it is fighting to “de-Nazify” Ukraine when President Volodymyr Zelensky is himself Jewish’, Lavrov, speaking to an Italian TV on Sunday, said:
“I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood. (That Zelensky is Jewish) means absolutely nothing. Wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”
The comments sparked outrage in Israel and the country demanded an apology, with PM Bennett saying shortly after that “such lies are meant to blame the Jews themselves for the most terrible crimes in history and thus free the oppressors of the Jews from their responsibility”.
In Thursday’s statement, Bennett’s office said that he had accepted Putin’s apology and “thanked him for clarifying his attitude towards the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust”, reports BBC.
Russia said the two discussed the Holocaust, but did not say Putin apologized.