On the anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called on the world community to stop Russia, which repeats the crimes of the Nazis and tries to extinguish an entire nation in the center of Europe.

“During the Second World War, humanity suffered colossal losses as a result of the aggressive policy of the Nazi regime and its henchmen. The fascists' anti-Semitic obsession, including in the occupied territories of Ukraine, caused a number of extremely brutal crimes,” the ministry’s official comment, published on Thursday, says.

It says that the occupation policy of the Nazis, built on repressive methods affecting the local population, included, among other things, the total extermination of Jews, spread throughout the territory of Ukraine.

“One of the symbols of the Holocaust, the place of mass execution of Jews in Europe, was Babyn Yar, where mass executions began on September 29, 1941, and over the next two days, almost 34,000 Ukrainian Jews were exterminated. During 1941-1943, about 100,000 people were killed in Babyn Yar - Jews, Roma, Ukrainian nationalists, Soviet partisans, patients of psychiatric hospitals, and prisoners of the Syrets concentration camp,” the Foreign Ministry said.

It notes that Ukrainians, who in their history have repeatedly experienced tragedies caused by attempts to destroy them as a nation, deeply understand the tragedy of the Holocaust and share the pain of the Jewish people.

“Today, we once again call on the world to do everything to prevent the recurrence of such disasters. Unfortunately, more than eight decades later, we again witnessed the destructive consequences of the spread of aggressive-chauvinist ideology. The full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, the brazen and systematic violation by the aggressor state of the universally recognized principles and norms of international law, brought the horrors of war back to the European continent,” the ministry stressed.

The Foreign Ministry also said that this war affected the place of common grief of the Ukrainian and Jewish people - on March 1, 2022, Russian shelling of the capital of Ukraine endangered the sacred place of memory of the victims of Babyn Yar, when this place was hit by a Russian rocket.

Other memorials to the Jewish people, as well as Jewish cemeteries throughout Ukraine, were destroyed as a result of the Russian invasion.

“The deadly machine of the Russian invaders already surpasses Hitler's misanthropic model. The places of mass burials of peaceful residents of Bucha, Mariupol, Irpin and Izium tortured by the Russian occupiers became irrefutable evidence of that,” the Ukrainian diplomats said.

They stress that now in the very heart of Europe, a bloody repetition of the most terrible crimes in the history of mankind is taking place for the eighth month in a row - the attempt to destroy an entire nation.

“Keeping silent about the atrocities of the occupiers, their cold-blooded tortures and murders of peaceful Ukrainians, Jews, Crimean Tatars, and representatives of other nationalities is nothing but complicity in the Kremlin's crimes not only against Ukraine, but also against the entire civilized world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on all international partners to increase political-diplomatic and sanctions pressure on the leadership of Russia, to recognize it as a State - sponsor of terrorism and to join efforts to establish a Special International Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine,” the ministry said.