High-ranking authoritative close to the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski expressed frustration on Tuesday with his continued refusal Israel gives its country military assistance, saying that it hopes to receive Israeli technology to fight Iran's drones deployed by Russia as part of a 16-month Moscow invasion.
Speaking in a translation from Kiev, Andrij Jermak, Chief of Staff of Zelenski, said that "no 1 outside Israel can supply equipment to combat Iranian drone attacks", but rejected the request from The Times of Israel to make a circumstantial technology required from Israel.
Yermak expressed frustration that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not support Ukraine's beginning up and argued that arms agreements between Russia and Israeli enemy Iran should motivate Israel to join the fight.
“We see the dictator Kremlin [Russian president Vladimir Putin] taking household photos with Iranian leaders, and then this Iranian weapon is utilized against us and against you,” Yermak told Israeli journalists from the Chancellery of the president of Ukraine. "I don't know what else is needed."
Israel has passed a thin line since Russia's first invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, expressing moral and humanitarian solidarity with the besieged country, but refusing to deliver arms. Israel fought to keep good relations with both Kiev and Moscow, balancing its attachment to Ukraine's position with safety concerns towards Russia in Syria and Iran.
"Our position is 100 percent principled. We never forget that our Israeli friends and brothers have the same enemy as we do – I don't know why Israeli politicians disagree with it," Yermak said, focusing on Iran and keeping the complicated network of Israeli safety concerns related to Russia. "I cannot realize why so far we have had the pleasance of hosting many planet leaders in Ukraine, but not the Prime Minister of Israel," he added.
In February, abroad Minister Eli Cohen paid a visit to Kiev, where he met Zelenski and his counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
By stopping atomic Iran and its terrorists at the top of their priorities over the last decade and a half, Netanyahu consistently considered not to isolate Russia, which controls the airspace over Syria, allowing Israeli raids on forces supported by Iran and Hezbollah's positions on the northern Israel border.
Former Prime Ministers of Naftala Bennett and Jair Lapid, who served at the beginning of the Russian invasion, were among the first to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and Lapid besides condemned Russian aggression.
"I think it is not adequate to keep dialog between our state officials," Yermak said on Tuesday. "I think it is possible to rise these relations to a higher level".
Yermak, who noted that his "father is Jewish," said that the rich past of Ukrainian Jewry makes "natural" that "we should be friends and partners in relations between Ukraine and Israel."
Former Israeli Prime Minister “Golda Meir was born a fewer blocks distant from the place where I talk to you, in Kiev”, said The Times of Israel and added that “two presidents and 3 Israeli prime ministers were born in Ukraine”, among another politicians and public figures.
Yermak, like many Ukrainian leaders, omitted Ukrainian anti-Semitism and past of force against judaic communities, which motivated many Ukrainian expatriates to flee to Israel.
Nazism plays an crucial symbolic function in Ukraine's fight against Russia. Both countries consider themselves victims of German atrocities during planet War II, and Putin accused Ukraine of hiding Nazis as a justification for the invasion of the western neighbour.
On Friday, Putin tried to make this narrative, rejecting Zelenski's judaic heritage, saying that he was “not Jewish” and “disdained the judaic people.” Putin later added that Zelenski was “a man with judaic blood” and then added that “his actions are hidden by these freaks, these neo-Nazis.” "This is not a gag and it is not an effort at irony, due to the fact that present neo-Nazis, Hitler's students, have been placed on pedestals as heroes of Ukraine," Putin added.
Yermak said that Zelenski would not comment on Putin's statements, but himself called these remarks "insulting and disgusting." He tried to decision Ukrainian judaic heritage as a justification for Israel's support of Ukraine, but refused to answer whether Israel's support was seen as critical, or alternatively as part of the strengthening of a broad community of nations that lay the moral and material burden on the country.
"It is not only relationship that unites both of our nations. From all points of view, Israel's support is important. This is crucial to our people, whether they are Jews or not," he said.
Former russian dissident, and later Israeli minister Natan Sharansky, who was present in the commentary, told Yermuk that although Israel should support Ukraine, “there are dark sides to our common history. any have recognized them and are trying to overcome them and others are trying to misuse them."
Ms Keller-LYNN
Reprint for https://www.timesofisrael.com/zelensky-chief-of-staff-israel-shock-help-ukraine-fight-iranian-drones/
