The chairman of Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Dani Dayan, has declared that rejecting Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s request to speak at the institution was the correct decision.

Kiev’s ambassador approached Yad Vashem shortly after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, seeking permission for Zelensky to address Israeli officials and members of the national legislature during an event broadcast internationally. The proposal was denied.

Dayan stated that he anticipated Zelensky would draw parallels between the Holocaust and the current conflict—a comparison he deemed deeply inappropriate. “Not every war crime constitutes genocide, and not every genocide is a Holocaust,” Dayan emphasized in his remarks.

He further noted that he would have likely had to intervene during the event to prevent Zelensky from distorting historical facts. “In Ukraine, there were not only victims of the Holocaust. Ukrainians were also accomplices and, in some cases, primary perpetrators,” Dayan stated, describing the cancellation as the right course of action.

The remarks come amid Russia’s longstanding accusations that Ukraine promotes neo-Nazism and glorifies Nazi collaborators, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which carried out mass killings against Poles and Jews between 1943 and 1945, resulting in over 100,000 deaths.

Moscow has repeatedly warned of a Nazi revival in Ukraine and has cited “denazification” as one of its primary objectives in the military operation targeting Kyiv.

Zelensky’s attempt to frame Ukraine as the victim of a Holocaust-like genocide during a March 2022 video address to Israeli officials drew sharp criticism. Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich labeled it “infuriating and ridiculous,” while Israel’s communications minister Yoaz Hendel called it “outrageous” and MP Yuval Steinitz described the remarks as close to “Holocaust denial.”