A television news anchor on a Russian state-owned TV station has accused the Jews of bringing the Holocaust on themselves.
Evelina Zakamskaya, a presenter on the TV channel Rossiya 24, made the eyebrow-raising claim during a chat over the Ukrainian protests and Crimea.
She was interviewing Aleksandr Prokhanov – a writer who recently admitted he was fervently hoping for a new Cold War – who said supporters of Ukraine were bringing about "a second Holocaust."
Writer Aleksandr Prokhanov
He said it is "strange that Jewish organisations, the European and our own Russian organisations, support the Maidan [protests].
"What are they doing? Do they not understand that they are bringing about a second Holocaust with their own hands? This is monstrous."
Zakamskaya replied that the Jews "brought about the first [Holocaust] similarly."
Presenter Evelina Zakamskaya
Nodding in agreement, Prokhanov said: "It is a blindness. It is an unbelievable blindness, that is clearly repeating itself, because even then in 1933 in Europe, many liberal organisations were feeding the Fuhrer."
A video of the comments in Russian was first posted by a blogger on Americablog.com, who provided his own translation.
Unsurprisingly, many were left horrified by the comments, with one YouTube user summarising some of the reaction by commenting: "Complete and absolute facepalm. Nice display in what kind of shit fantasy Russia lives in today."
Others said the fascists "are in Russia, not Kiev."
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of anti-Semitism in Ukraine following several violent anti-Semitic attacks that have occurred during the revolution.
But in an open letter to Putin this month, Jewish leaders wrote: “Your certainty about the growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine, which you expressed at your press conference, also does not correspond to the actual facts.”
Yaakov Dov Bleich, a chief rabbi of Ukraine, also said earlier this month that the attacks may be provocations by pro-Russian forces seeking to delegitimise the Ukrainian revolution.