The Mayor of Kiev, Leonid Chernovetsky, has canceled plans to build a hotel near Babi Yar, the site where more than 33,700 Jews were murdered over the course of two days during the Holocaust. Jews worldwide had protested the plan, saying the site should be left untouched.

Among those who protested the plan was President Shimon Peres, who expressed his opposition in a video conference Friday that included senior Ukrainian officials.