OREANDA-NEWS. The reaction of the world community to the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, along with the ignorance by Western countries of the fact of the existence of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine, no longer refers to "double standards", but to "diverting attention" from the real problem and "meanness". This statement was made by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, on the air of Sputnik radio.

Stop calling it "double standards". There is a good human word - meanness, - said Zakharova.

According to the diplomat, this rhetoric is a thing of the past - it was appropriate when Russia was trying to "reach out and explain, call for some kind of empathy, or, in our words, sympathy, empathy and understanding of the problem." However, as Zakharova emphasized, these attempts were in vain.

Today we see zero reaction. Moreover, we see anti-reaction. We see a reaction that, as it were, diverts the eyes of the international community from the problem and specifically focuses on what is not a problem,” the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded.

The reason for the West’s attacks was Lavrov’s answer during an interview on Italian television to the question of how “Nazification” is possible in Ukraine if Jewish blood flows in Zelensky’s veins. He then stated that "the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves", and suggested that Hitler could have had Jewish blood.

His statement caused a wide public outcry, after which the Russian ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, was summoned to the country's Foreign Ministry for an explanatory conversation. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet urged not to use the tragedy of the Holocaust for political purposes, and the country's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called the Russian colleague's statement "a terrible historical mistake" and demanded an apology.