Zhirinovsky blames Jews for the war and the Holocaust

THE ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky yesterday blamed Jews for starting the Second World World War and for provoking the Holocaust.

In an hour-long address to journalists, "The essence of the conflict around the Jewish people is that when their number grows too much in some country, war breaks out there," said Mr Zhirinovsky, who leads the third- largest faction in the Duma, the Russian parliament's lower house. "That happened in Germany."

Anti-Semitism is widespread in Russia, which has the third-largest Jewish population in the world, after the United States and Israel. - AP, Moscow