Daniel Hoffman, former CIA Moscow Station Chief and a Fox News contributor, described how the poignant words of “Babi Yar,” by Soviet-Russian poet, Yevgeni Yevtushenko, who he met over 20 years ago, have given him solace in recent days.
The lines, “I’m every man executed here/As I am every child murdered here,” are particularly haunting since on March 1, the Russian army bombs landed near Babi Yar, site of the 1941 Nazi massacre which killed 33,771 Jews.
Hoffman told Israel National News, “What he’s saying in the poem is, ‘I’m not Jewish, but because of this attack, everyone is. And so Zelensky is saying, ‘Hey, Europeans, you’re not Ukrainians, but you’re all Ukrainians’…When innocents are attacked, then we rush to their defense and we are them, we are one with them.”
Hoffman discussed the irony of Russian President Vladimir Putin grossly underestimating Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and comedian with no previous military or intelligence experience.
“Here’s a Jewish comedian who is (defeating) the KGB operative in the Kremlin… He’s already foiled a plot to kill him…Putin didn’t accurately assess his adversary, Zelensky, as a guy who would stand and fight and inspire his followers and mobilize the international community at large.”
Zelensky’s grandfather, Semyon Ivanovich Zelensky, fought in the Soviet Union’s Red Army against the Nazis in World War II and Semyon's father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust.
Putin said he invaded Ukraine in order to “denazify” it and fight against “neo-Nazis,” skewed reasoning which Hoffman calls “tone-deaf propaganda.”
He explained, “The tactics the Russians have deployed, targeting residential neighborhoods and government buildings and civilian areas…that hearkens back to the worst days in World War II that we saw from the Nazi regime. Even just using the word ‘Nazi’ or ‘neo-Nazi’ - there was one Nazi regime and one evil leader, Hitler, and I don’t see the value in comparing anybody to that.”
On March 9, the Russian military bombed a maternity ward in Mariupol, injuring at least 17 people, including women about to give birth. Hoffman explained that this is a Russian military operations tactic.
“All you have to do is go back to Grozny and Aleppo. They deliberately target civilian infrastructure; hospitals, schools, residential areas in an effort to subdue the population…That’s classic Russian approach going back to the second World War.” From 2015 - 2016, during the Syrian Civil War, there were more than 500 attacks on medical facilities, including pediatric hospitals, throughout Aleppo and other regions of Syria, by Russian and Syrian forces.
As part of a misinformation campaign, the Russian Embassy in Israel targeted the Simon Wiesenthal Center for posting “fake news” when they retweeted Sky News’ footage of the demolished maternity ward with a caption stating that children were buried beneath the rubble.
“Perhaps there are still some Russians who are ready to swallow whole such a lurid lie,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action at the SWC, stated, “The videos that emerged later in the day of pregnant women being carried out of the bombed-out hospital on stretchers have shaken the conscience of the world.” The Russian Embassy has since removed the accusatory tweet.
Hoffman believes Putin’s past as a Soviet intelligence agent and spy cannot be separated from his current day modus operandi.
“Vladimir Putin is a KGB guy, so just don’t ever forget that. So what they do is they deny everything, admit nothing and make a bunch of counteraccusations that are false. And there are a few people who will believe them, unfortunately.”
Hoffman is optimistic that Russian citizens will soon see through the lies. “The leader can lie all he wants, but eventually the people say, ‘you know what, we’re seeing all these dead soldiers coming home to be buried’…eventually people say, ‘this government is corrupt. They’ve stolen our money for years and years and built palatial estates on the Black Sea.’ That’s where you run into serious problems if you’re Vladimir Putin.”
Israel has been sending emergency aid to Ukrainian civilians and is expected to take in about 100,000 Ukrainian and Russian Jews as Israeli citizens under the Law of Return.
It will also be housing approximately 25,000 non-Jews until the war is over. Despite its support for Ukraine, Israel has been criticized for not taking a strong enough stance against Russia, and has found itself caught in the crosshairs between Russia and Ukraine, leaving itself in a potentially precarious position.
On Feb. 24, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai said his ministry would be shipping aid packages to approximately 200,000 Jews in Ukraine.
Shortly afterwards, Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russian deputy ambassador to the UN, told the UN Security Council that Russia does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan heights, which he called part of Syria. He also alluded to Israel’s capital being Tel Aviv, rather than Jerusalem.
Hoffman commented, “I think what Russia likes to do is build leverage… Russia is allied with Syria and Iran and Israel needs to engage with Russia for that reason. Russia plays Machiavellian hard power politics, and they’re saying to Israel, ‘Hey, we’re going to put some boulders in the middle of the road here, and you’re going to have to pay us for us to remove them, and one way we want you to pay us is whatever support we’re going to demand of you.’” Seeing parallels with Israel and Ukraine, he added, “Both live in really tough neighborhoods with enemies right at their borders.”
Zelensky is currently mediating with Israel Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, about how to stop the war. Zelensky is asking for help with the release of the mayor of Melitopol and other public figures who have been abducted by the Russian army.