Kyiv’s situation has likely not been this severe since the start of the war nearly four years ago. Drones and missiles have caused extensive damage to the city’s energy infrastructure, leaving large areas without electricity even as temperatures drop to 12 degrees below zero. Despite the harsh conditions, Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky, did not forgo his annual participation in the International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, and this morning appeared at the Babi Yar killing ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Also attending the event were Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov, who recently assumed his post, and some 30 ambassadors from Western countries serving in Kyiv, who lit candles in memory of the victims.

Shliach Rabbi Meir Stambler, who serves as Chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine (FJCU), was honored with reciting Kaddish in memory of those murdered at the site. His deputy, Rabbi Rafael Rothman, recited the “Keil Malei Rachamim” prayer and a chapter of Tehillim, as he does each year.

Also present were Shluchim: Kyiv’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch, and his son, Rabbi Ariel Markovitch, rabbi of the young professionals community in the Ukrainian capital; Rabbi Moshe Asman, one of the country’s leading rabbis; Rabbi Mordechai Levenhartz; and Rabbi Sholom Gopin.

President Zelensky warmly shook the rabbis’ hands, inquired about the condition of the communities and the state of synagogues in Kyiv in light of the prolonged power and water outages across large parts of the capital, and thanked them for their dedicated work on behalf of Ukraine’s Jews.

Addressing those present, President Zelensky said: “In this place, tens of thousands of Jews were murdered, as part of the Holocaust of European Jewry in which six million Jews were slaughtered. The world must remember the promise of ‘Never Again’ and keep it. These are not just words. When antisemitism is spreading around the world, we must ensure that this promise is upheld. We must act against antisemitism. The very fact that we speak here about this fascism teaches the next generation to remember the past so they can act in the future against antisemitism. It shows us how far people can go.”

At Babi Yar, one of the largest massacres of Jews during the Holocaust was carried out. Over the course of two days, on the eve of Yom Kippur 5702 (1941), an estimated 33,000 Jews were murdered at the site. As reported, in the past year, the identities of 1,761 of the victims were identified, following President Zelensky’s directive to open government archives related to the massacre.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked worldwide on January 27, the date on which the Auschwitz extermination camp was liberated by Allied forces in 1945. This date was established by a unanimous vote of the United Nations in 2005, and this year marks the 30th anniversary of the day’s observance.