File photo: The main synagogue of Nikolayev, Ukraine.

At around 2:00am Shabbos morning, two Molotov cocktails were lobbed at a synagogue in Nikolayev, located in the southeast of Ukraine, amid rising tensions between the country’s ethnic Russians and the newly instated pro-western government in Kiev.

Yisroel Gotlieb, son of the city’s chief Rabbi Sholom Gotlieb, said that a passing stranger was able to put out the fires resulting from the firebombing, preventing further damage to the synagogue.

This marks the second time a synagogue has been firebombed in Ukraine’s southeast since the outbreak of violence earlier this year. The first incident occurred in the city of Zaperozhia in late February.

Nikolayev, or Miklaiiv in Ukrainian, is known as the birthplace of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, whose father served as the city’s chief rabbi before relocating to take up a similar post in Yekatrinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk).

Photos courtesy of Shturem.net