A Ukrainian Jewish leader accused the Daily Mail of fabricating a quote that made it look like he had engaged in Holocaust revisionism Thursday.

In an article published earlier this week. the British tabloid quoted Joseph Zissels, the President of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities (Vaad) of Ukraine, as saying that the extent of Ukrainian collaboration in the Holocaust has been exaggerated for political ends.

“There are certain stereotypes about participation of Ukrainian nationalists in pogroms in the early war years which were planted by Soviet history. It is true that the local population did cooperate with German Nazis in the occupied territories but the majority of them were ethnic Russian,” Zissels allegedly said.

“Russia makes a point about Ukrainian nationalists because it is keen to divert suspicion from itself.”

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, however, the former Soviet dissident and Ukrainian nationalist said that he was unfamiliar with the article and did not utter the statements ascribed to him.

“This is fake,” he said. “I didn’t say anything like that. It’s absurd.”

Accusations of anti-Semitism have been bandied back and forth since the beginning of the conflict, with both sides seeking to portray itself as morally superior. Russia positioned itself as the protector of Jews and other minorities when annexing the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine last year while Ukrainian Jewish leaders have counter-asserted that several high profile anti-Semitic incidents were deliberate Russian provocations.