International- Russian forces damaged a
Holocaust memorial near Kharkiv on Saturday,Ukraine 's defense ministry said. - "The Nazis have returned," the ministry said, echoing Zelenskyy's comparison of the invasion to the
Holocaust .
Russian forces shelled and damaged a monument in the Drobitsky Yar Holocaust memorial complex on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, Ukraine's ministry of defense said.
"The Nazis have returned," the ministry said in a Twitter post. "Exactly 80 years later."
Drobitsky Yar is where SS officers shot approximately 15,000 Jews in December 1941, during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, according to the World Jewish Congress. Children were thrown into pits alive, where they would quickly freeze to death, to save bullets.
The atrocities were memorialized in 2002 when a Holocaust memorial complex featuring a giant black menorah was built.
Russian artillery shelling damaged the menorah on Saturday, The Jerusalem Post reported, marking the second Holocaust memorial site to be bombed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian forces dropped bombs on the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial on March 1.
Nazis carried out some of World War II's deadliest massacres at Babyn Yar. An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people were murdered at the site, including approximately 33,000 Jews.
—Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 1, 2022
"History repeating," Zelenskyy, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said in a March 1 tweet.
The deadly war in Ukraine has featured a lot of rhetoric relating to the Nazis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to justify his unprovoked invasion by claiming that he wishes to "de-Nazify" the country and baselessly accuses Ukraine of genocide.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, has compared the Russian military assault of his country to the Holocaust. Last week, he claimed to Israeli lawmakers last week that Russia is attempting to carry out a "final solution."
Similarly, Mariupol's mayor Vadym Boichenko likened allegations of forced deportations of Ukrainians to enemy cities to the deportation of victims during the "final solution" stage of the Holocaust.