"They are not even ashamed of it." Russia stops Ukrainian children for the destruction of the nation - the main rabin of Ukraine

But the answer, as a person who has a connection with Ukraine for 33 years, we are all confident that we will have a return to the Motherland. And we want to restore what we had, a normal life. It seems to me that there will be even better life now in Ukraine after the war than it was before. But I think so. From the very beginning of the war, the President said that if we do not have the help of God, we have no opportunity for us to defeat the Russian army. God helped us, thank God.

We must say that. And we are now where we are now. We see that the Russian army has not destroyed Ukraine as a state. And they did not capture Kyiv in three days, as they were sure they would be. Video of the day and now it seems to me that Ukraine has the opportunity to counterattack. We need to pray again to God. That is, we can still take away both Crimea and Donbas, and that we can make such a parade on Khreshchatyk, or probably all over Ukraine on Victory Day. It seems to me that it is possible.

If we believe in God, if we believe in the impossible that God is doing what is being done in this world, he can do so that we have one hundred percent of victory over the Russians. We already see that it is, the beginning. What is being done now that they are so experiencing this pressure. -If you come back to the events we see in Ukraine, you personally understand that you can expect any military crimes from Russia? Because we have seen, it seems to me.

We even saw such a mass murder of prisoners in Olenivka, on the territory of this concentration camp they created. That is, we even saw the concentration camps again. So, your feeling. Did you expect it from Russia? - I want to say that it seems to me that no one expected. In general, when the war began, everyone said that Russia would never attack Ukraine, it is 2022, such things are not done now in normal countries and so on. But we see that what we did not expect, it still came true.

Honestly, I did not expect them to behave like criminals as fascists. There are very, very many facts, which makes it possible to say that it is genocide. No one expected that it would even be possible to say so. Moreover, we see that they can, they are not ashamed to say that two thousand children they [abducted] in Mariupol. This is one of the signs that were always [during genocide] when they wanted to make this nation not, their child was taken away, and they were adopted by their own.

What is it? What is done now, the 21st century, what are done for things? What to expect from Russia? Normal, cultural country and so on? I want to tell you that no. No one expected it possible. And when it was, it was, not only for me, but for everyone, it was a surprise that we did not expect. It still does not fit. Although we see once again, and again. But we have that we have, as we are told. We already see that it is not the war of the Russian army against the Ukrainian army.

It is a war of the Russian army against the people of Ukraine, against people of Ukraine. - You may have heard that the former chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinhas Goldshmidt, left this post on July 6. Before that, he left Russia, two weeks after the start of large -scale aggression. He told in an interview for the German edition that anyone who speaks about the war risks being punished and prison, he refers to Russia.

What does it testify to you? What can be predicted further if there is such a pressure? We see now according to various data that Jews are leaving Russia even more than from Ukraine. - First of all, I studied with Rabbi Goldshmidt 37 years ago. We studied at Chicago at the Ravinat Seminary. I know him very well. We are friends still. It's first and foremost. And we had a problem, we talked a lot, the problem that he could not talk, say what he thinks. We have known about this problem for many years.

It seems to me that what is being done now in Russia, those who know history, said that it would be so, 20 years ago. Or 15 years ago it was possible to say exactly that it would be. And so it does not surprise me that Jews from Russia leave more than from Ukraine. It seems to me the last 10 years. I do not want to talk much about it, because there is a very big Jewish community, let everyone decide the way he wants, what life he wants or does not want.

But now they have the opportunity to go to Israel, to Europe. Now less, there will be no longer in Europe. But it seems to me that it will be very difficult now to be the Jewish community in Russia. And the great question of how the war will end. Because if the war is over, and there will be democratic forces that will rise and make it so that there is another society than Russia now has, then it will probably be good.

But these are big changes, and it is never good for national minorities, you know, not just for Jews. So it is difficult to answer. We pray and pray that there is peace around the world. Ukraine does not want war. We did not start this war. We do not want the Russian people to disappear, let them live and do not touch us, do not touch anyone. And so the Jewish community is hard there. As a Democrat, I say so that everyone chooses what life he wants, where he wants to live.

It seems to me that in Russia, apparently, now there is no this choice so that everyone can choose what he thinks. When I came to the Soviet Union in 1989, it was the hardest thing for me, as for an American who left [from the US] with democracy, it was not that people were afraid to say what they were thinking, but they were already afraid to think freely. Because they were afraid that, apparently, I will say what I don't have to say. And it did not start today, not yesterday in Russia.