On October 31, the illegitimate “Crimean speaker,” Vladimir Konstantinov, chose to comment on statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, attempting to “refute” the idea that Ukraine is the successor to Kyivan Rus’, a state that existed long before the emergence of Russia. It is worth noting that there was nothing new in this for the Crimean collaborator.
In July 2021, for instance, the Ukrainian President pointed out that “Kyivan Rus’ is the mother of our history. 24 regions of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula are her own children. And they are rightfully her heirs. And cousins and very distant relatives should not encroach on her legacy. They should not try to prove their involvement in the history of thousands of years and thousands of events, being from the places where they took place thousands of kilometers away.”
We mention this latest “response” from Konstantinov because the “speaker” chose to lace his remarks with antisemitic insinuations directed at Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It is worth recalling that we have previously pointed out, on several occasions, the blatant antisemitism displayed by Konstantinov. In January 2023, he publicly claimed that during the Holocaust, “German Jews did not even consider themselves Jews, much like how Russians in Ukraine consider themselves ‘Ukrainians’.” Furthermore, in April 2023, Konstantinov underscored his antisemitism by alleging that “Israelis murder children”, this, notably, just months before Hamas, a group friendly to Russia, launched attacks on Israeli civilians.
At the time, we noted that it is precisely through such “official statements”, criminal pronouncements by these Crimean Nazis, that their truly inhumane nature is laid bare. We have repeatedly documented antisemitic outbursts by the “Crimean leadership” in submissions to UN bodies and other international organizations, including the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. For instance, in October 2026, this issue was addressed during several events and discussions at the 2026 Warsaw Human Dimension Conference.
It should be recalled that in November 2024, experts from our Association secured an official ruling declaring the statements made by Konstantinov and his “associates” to be unlawful within the framework of case 521/11949/24. We will continue our efforts to counter antisemitism and other forms of racial discrimination, as the practices criminally promoted by the Crimean “authorities” and their affiliated oligarchs, including Konstantinov’s “business partners” and the entities under their control.
