The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has vowed to find and punish “the bastards” distributing fliers ordering Jews in eastern Ukraine to register with pro-Russian separatists.
“I made a clear statement and urged Ukrainian military and security forces and Ukrainian Department of Homeland Security urgently to find these bastards and to bring them to justice,” Yatsenyuk told NBC Meet the Press' David Gregory.
The tracts have been distributed last week in the eastern city of Donetsk by masked men holding the Russian Federation flag and the symbol of the separatist Republic of Donetsk to Jewish worshippers leaving synagogues at the start of Pessach, the Jewish holiday of Passover.
The documents, which also order Jews to pay a fee and declare all property holdings, appeared to be orders from Denis Pushilin, the self-proclaimed leader of a separatist movement that overtook several government buildings in the region.
Pushilin denied any involvement in the fliers, and said they were the work of ''provocateurs'' looking to paint his movement as anti-Semitic.