During an interview with Italy's Rete 4 channel, Lavrov was asked how Russia could say it needed to "denazify" Ukraine, when the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was Jewish.

"When they say 'What sort of nazification is this if we are Jews', well I think that Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it means nothing," Lavrov said, speaking through an Italian interpreter.

"For a long time now we've been hearing the wise Jewish people say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves," he added.