KYIV: A hundred people gathered on Thursday in the central synagogue in Kyiv to pay tribute to Matityahu Anton Samborskyi, the son of Ukraine's chief rabbi who was killed fighting Russian forces.

Mourners carried flowers, caressed the coffin and shook hands with the deceased's father Chief Rabbi Moshe Azman, who was holding back tears.

"I want God to take revenge for him and for the other innocents, soldiers and civilians who are dying in this war," Azman said.

He strongly denounced allegations from Moscow, which claimed Ukraine's treatment of Russian speakers in the western-backed country was comparable to the actions of Nazi Germany.

The Kremlin has used the claims - widely contested by the Ukrainian government and the country's Jewish community - to try to justify invading Ukraine.

"He was killed by the Russian world that came here and said they wanted to 'denazify' Ukraine," Ukraine's chief rabbi said.

"Those who they 'denazify' are orphans, people of different nationalities, Russians, Jewish people and Ukrainians," he continued.

Before Russia invaded in February, Ukraine was home to roughly 300,000 Jews, 50,000 of them in the capital, rabbi Azman previously said.

Samborskyi, adopted by the rabbi's family as a child, went to fight off Russian forces of his own will.

"Ukraine and Israel, in a way, share the same fate, fighting for the right to be a state, to have the right to choose, to be free," said Ukraine's ambassador to Israel Michael Brodsky.

"This is a tragedy for the entire Jewish community," he said.

 - AFP