Drone footage captures continued Russian attacks on the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. Video / AP
Israel has claimed Vladimir Putin apologised for remarks made by his foreign minister, who suggested Adolf Hitler may have "had Jewish blood".
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made the claim after a phone call with the Russian leader.
His verison of events was that the two leaders "discussed Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's remarks".
"The Prime Minister accepted President Putin's apology for Lavrov's remarks and thanked him for clarifying his attitude towards the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust."
However, a Russian readout of the call makes no reference to the apology.
It said that Putin and Mr Bennett spoke about the importance of "carefully preserving the historical truth about the events of those years and honouring the memory of all the fallen, including the victims of the Holocaust"
Mr Lavrov made his absurd comments last week.
While speaking to Italian outlet Mediaset's Rete 4 channel the Russian claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "puts forward an argument of what kind of Nazism can they have if he himself is Jewish".
According to a transcript of the interview, he then added: "I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood."
Moscow has previously said it wants to "demilitarise" and "de-Nazify" Ukraine in its propaganda.
His remarks sparked a furious response from Israeli politicians. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned them as "an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error".
"Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust," he said.
"The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism."
