“Rashism” is against Jews”: In Russia, represented by Maria Zakharova, a “scandal” erupted over the new Ukrainian “Law on National Memory”

The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, on August 31, 2025, “criticized” the new “Law on National Memory” signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

This document introduces into Ukrainian legislation the concept of “rashism”, characterized as an ideology and practice based on chauvinism, imperialism, Soviet traditions, and elements of Nazism.

Zakharova stated that the term “rashism” “has nothing to do with Russia,” believing that it coincides with the acronym of the surname of the famous medieval Jewish rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, popularly known as Rashi. She noted that this law, in her words, “legalizes the insult of an 11th-century rabbi, whose works are studied by millions of people around the world” (!).

In the self-opinion of the representative of the Russian foreign policy department, the authors of the law demonstrated “linguistic and moral illiteracy,” characterizing the Verkhovna Rada as a “linguistic circus.” She also added that Kyiv, “playing with Nazism, has come to sacrilege.”

The law “On the Fundamentals of the State Policy of National Memory of the Ukrainian People” also includes terms such as “historical anti-Ukrainian propaganda,” “crimes against the Ukrainian people,” and “place of memory of the Ukrainian people.” In the bill, the military conflict that began with Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine on February 19, 2014, and led to a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, is called the “War for the Independence of Ukraine.”

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