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‘When Russia Goes Through Bad Times, They Target the Jews,’ Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Warns in Appeal for Unity
Yevgen Korniychuk, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the State of Israel, in his office in Tel Aviv. Photo: Ben Cohen/The Algemeiner
Yevgen Korniychuk, Ukraine’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv, has found himself in a rare position since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists unleashed a bestial pogrom in southern Israel, as the diplomatic representative of one country caught in a war of existential survival dispatched to a second country that is engaged in a war with similar stakes.
“Yes, it’s a strange feeling,” Korniychuk told The Algemeiner during an extensive telephone interview on Tuesday, emitting a short laugh. Having served in Israel for more than two years — a period covering the brutal Russian invasion of his country in Feb. 2022 — Korniychuk has encountered several moments of frustration in his bid to win stronger diplomatic and military support from Jerusalem as Ukraine confronts its Russian enemy. “As the ambassador, I have to remain optimistic,” he reflected during a previous interview in Jan. 2023 with this publication. “If I am pessimistic, I may as well retire.”
Korniychuk firmly believes that Israel and Ukraine are natural allies, even if the Israeli government, nervous of poking Moscow, has shied away from saying so explicitly. In part, it’s because both countries are facing the same enemy in the shape of Iran, which has been providing the devastating Shahed drones used by the Russians to attack Ukrainian population centers at the same time as backing proxy terrorist groups, among them Hamas and Hezbollah, dedicated to Israel’s destruction. “Russia, Iran, and the Iranian proxies are the axis of evil,” Korniychuk emphasized.
He also counsels that Israel cannot trust Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime, pointing to the long and violent history of Russian antisemitism and the key role Russia has played in spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories, dating back to the fabricated “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” unveiled by the Tsarist secret police in 1903. “The Russian regime is always looking for the Ukrainian roots of whatever problems they have,” Korniychuk said, referring to Russia’s patently false claim that the democratic government in Kyiv was responsible for last weekend’s attack by ISIS terrorists on a crowded theater in Moscow. “But the truth is that they will be looking for the Jewish roots also. When Russia goes through bad times, they target the Jews and then the other minorities; if you look at Russian history in the 19th and 20th centuries, that was always the case.”
In the last few days, Russian representatives have unwittingly proved Korniychuk’s point, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov ridiculing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the wake of the ISIS attack, as a “peculiar kind of Jew.” Putin himself has also deployed similar rhetoric, describing Zelensky as a “disgrace to the Jewish people” in comments last June. All this reflects, as Korniychuk remarked, the ultranationalist ideology reigning in Moscow which holds that those Jews living outside of Russia’s orbit have been corrupted by capitalism and the desire to turn a quick profit — in contrast to the “traditionalist” Jews of the east, to use the term of Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, whose values are supposedly aligned with those espoused by their Russian hosts.
Korniychuk recounted a meeting with officials at the Israeli foreign ministry right before our conversation, in which he had made the same substantive points. The realist calculus deployed by the Israelis in assessing Russian actions — “putting themselves in Russia’s shoes,” as Korniychuk put it — frustrates him, because what Russia is doing “is not rational.” Similarly, talk of Russian “escalation” sounds empty to Ukrainian ears. “We don’t see any further escalation because we’ve already had a full-scale war for the last two years,” the ambassador observed. True, he added, the Russians “could decide to use nuclear weapons, but even then, our resistance will not stop. We believe that anything could happen and we have to be ready for everything, as do our European neighbors. The big European states — France, Germany, Italy — now understand what they are dealing with.”
Another area of Ukrainian-Israeli common interest outlined by Korniychuk concerns the efforts within the US Congress to pass a $95 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. While the measure won Senate approval last month, it has been stalled in the House of Representatives by far right Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump, many of whom have followed Trump’s lead in advocating that Ukraine surrender to Russian conquest. Bipartisan attempts to approve the package have examined other methods for funneling the aid, for example in the form of a loan, but while the deliberations go on, Ukrainian forces are running perilously short of ammunition and other basic materiel.
Korniychuk has been advocating for a united lobbying effort in Washington, DC, to break the deadlock. “This is money that will be spent in the US on ammunition and anti-missile defense, so it’s a win-win for the US,” he asserted. “Israel is experiencing the same problems with ammunition, so this is why it’s important for us to join forces.” He remains hopeful that Ukrainian advocacy groups will work with AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobby organization in the US, which in the recent past has hailed closer Ukrainian-Israeli cooperation in the face of the Russian threat.
In that regard, Korniychuk also stresses that Putin’s regime maintains close ties with Israel’s deadliest adversaries, pointing out that Moscow has warmly received delegations from Hamas and other radical Palestinian factions, as well as Hezbollah and the rebel Houthis in Yemen, who have caused havoc in the Red Sea with intentional attacks on Western — but not Russian or Chinese — cargo vessels since Oct. 7. As a diplomat he said, he has not seen any intelligence to suggest that Russia had advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 pogrom, but “we have enough evidence of their close ties and relations and support of those groups, so we can reach the appropriate conclusions.”
Korniychuk emphasized that since Oct. 7, he had moderated his criticisms of the Israeli government’s reluctance to ally more openly with Ukraine. “We are not talking about a ceasefire. We have been attacked brutally by Russia, like Hamas attacked Israel. We support the right of Israel to self-defense,” he said. At the same time, he noted with regret that the “excessive loss of civilian life” in Gaza meant that Israel was “losing the propaganda war.”
“I understand the difficult position [the Israelis] are in at the moment, and we are cooperating now on a very good level in terms of security,” he said. “These are difficult times, and we don’t get to choose our circumstances. If we achieve even modest goals, that is something, given the situation in which we find ourselves.”
The post ‘When Russia Goes Through Bad Times, They Target the Jews,’ Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Warns in Appeal for Unity first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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