Boris Romantschenko
(Picture: BUCHENWALD AND MITTELBAU-DORA MEMORIALS FOUNDATION)Boris Johnson has labelled the killing of a Holocaust survivor in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv an “appalling tragedy”.
Responding to news of the death of Boris Romantschenko, 96, who survived the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, the Prime Minister tweeted on Tuesday: “An appalling tragedy. Boris survived four concentration camps and dedicated his life to ensuring the horrors of Nazism wouldn’t be repeated.”
Mr Johnson added that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that his invasion of Ukraine was to de-nazify the country was a “grotesque lie”. “Instead we’re seeing the bombardment of innocent people,” he said.
The Prime Minister re-posted a tweet by the Kyiv Independent news site which reported that Mr Romantschenko was killed during shelling in his apartment block in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
In an address overnight, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had been killed by a Russian airstrike as the war nears its fourth week.
“With each day of this war, it becomes more obvious what ‘denazification’ means to them,” Mr Zelensky said.
Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said on Twitter that in killing Mr Romanchenko “Putin managed to ‘accomplish’ what even Hitler couldn’t.”
