Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke on Thursday with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and congratulated him on the occasion of his country's 31 independence anniversary, which was last week.
Lapid expressed his support for the Ukrainian people.
The two leaders were scheduled to speak last Thursday, but the call was postponed after Zelensky refused to speak with Lapid, in anger over Israel's failure to participate in the Crimea Platform, an international, diplomatic initiative that met online to express support for Ukraine and its sovereignty over Crimea, invaded by Russia in 2014.
The Prime Minister's Office said Lapid and Zelensky discussed the situation in the fighting in Ukraine. The prime minister sent his condolences for the casualties of the war and called for a diplomatic end to the fighting.
"The prime minister also called on religious Israelis to avoid travel to Uman, site a Hasidic leader's tomb, for the annual pilgrimage during the Jewish high holidays, where their lives could be endangered by the war," the PMO said in a statement.
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The grave of a Hassidic rabbi, site of an annual pilgrimage of religious Jews in Uman, Ukraine
(Photo: Edward Doks )
In a statement released after the call Zelensky said he had spoken with the Israeli prime minister for the first time.
"I expect his country to join the sanctions imposed on Russia and provide practical assistance to Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression," Zelensky said.
Ukraine's ambassador to Israel, Yevhen Korniichuk criticized Israel in an interview to a local Russian language radio station, for supplying only miniscule military assistance to his country and its refusal to provide Kyiv with a $500,000 loan.
"We were given two small shipments, one with 1,000 blue helmets and flack jackets and the other, on the eve of U.S. President Joe Biden's visit to Israel," Korniichuk said.
"We are grateful but that is not enough. I said repeatedly that Ukraine would pay for what is needed. We need weapons of war. We must win this war, it is of the utmost importance that we win, or Ukraine will no longer exist," he said.
Korniichuk said the request of a loan was delivered by Ukraine early in June and accused Israel of leaking the matter to the press.
Officials in Jerusalem said extending such a loan was too complicated, although 30 other nations had already agreed to loan Ukraine the requested funds. The ambassador said Israel's failure to respond was likely politically motivated but thanked the government for the humanitarian assistance it provides his country.
Still, Korniichuk said Israel's position fails to meet Kyiv's the expectations and is baffling.