Ukraine’s president marks Babyn Yar anniversary with tribute to ‘crippled fates’

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has marked the 80th anniversary of a Nazi mass shooting of Jews and other civilians, in a ceremony near Kiev.

Nearly 34,000 men, women and children were gunned down at the wooded ravine of Babyn Yar on September 29-30, 1941, during the Nazi wartime occupation.

It was one of the biggest single massacres of the Holocaust.

In total nearly 150,000 people were killed in the region, most of them Jews, although Poles, Roma, Russians and Ukrainians were also among the dead.

Zelenskiy laid flowers a lamp at monuments honouring victims at the site.

A statement released by his office to mark the anniversary of the massacre said: “Two words, behind which are more than 100,000 human lives.

“Two words, behind which are millions of crippled fates. Two words, followed by 80 years of joint pain of the Jewish and Ukrainian peoples.

“Babyn Yar.”

Israel’s president Isaac Herzog will fly to Ukraine next week to mark the anniversary during the first state visit of his presidency.

In May, Ukraine unveiled a synagogue built of wood and designed to unfold like a pop-up book at a site commemorating the victims of Babyn Yar.

Last week, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law defining antisemitism and establishing punishments for anti-Jewish hate speech.