Ukrainian police are investigating an assault in Kyiv on the head of a Jewish volunteer emergency medical service, the city police authority said on Friday.

Rabbi Hillel Cohen, chairman of the Hatzalah Ukraine organization, was assaulted by two men in black clothes who flung anti-Semitic insults on him and hit him with sticks several times, the authority told Interfax. "The blows weren't very powerful - apparently, humiliation was the main purpose of the attackers," it said.

The attackers then drove off in a car without taking any of Cohen's belongings with them.

The incident took place near a stadium.

"Investigators are trying to find out what exactly motives the attackers had - hooligan or anti-Semitic," the authority said.