Born after the Holocaust, Ukrainian Jewish leader Josef Zissels might have thought himself lucky just to be alive.

But instead of living quietly as a radio engineer in the then Soviet state, he became an outspoken dissident and human rights activist, was arrested twice for “defaming the Soviet political and social system,” and served a total of six years in prison.

Now head of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, and vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, he is once again in the midst of geopolitical turbulence, as Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces continue their battle for eastern Ukraine.

And once again, Zissels, 68, is digging in his heels. Far from fleeing Ukraine, he says, he feels most at home there.

He maintains that Ukraine’s 300,000-strong Jewish community — which some figures put much lower — is largely remaining within the country’s borders, in spite of the violence and rumoured rise in anti-Semitism after the “Euromaidan” revolt that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

“Fifty-eight hundred Jews left during the conflict,” he said on a visit to Toronto last week. “But this is not a ‘Jewish question,’ it’s a war. Jews are suffering in the same way other Ukrainians are.”

Although Russian media frequently refer to Ukrainians as “fascists,” the far right represents only a small part of the political spectrum, Zissels says. In an open letter to President Vladimir Putin last year, he wrote that Euromaidan protesters “included nationalistic groups, but even the most marginal do not dare show anti-Semitism or other xenophobic behaviour.”

Many Jews who have immigrated to Israel over the years have returned, he says. “They found that Israeli life is not what they imagined it to be, and they came back.” Now, many have moved from eastern Ukraine to Kyiv and other western Ukrainian cities to escape the war, which has killed more than 6,000 people.

The conflict in Ukraine goes much deeper than Russia’s desire to take revenge on its former possession for choosing to move closer to Europe and the West, Zissels maintains.

“Russia is a country that in its history doesn’t have experience with democracy. It is an authoritarian empire. If it loses something its instinct is to grab it back — as though a leg has been cut off and it is left with a phantom pain.”

Unlike those who blame only Putin for arousing aggressive nationalism over Ukraine, Zissels says “it’s not the leadership, it’s the whole nation.” Recent polls show an overwhelming majority of 80 per cent back Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Containing Russia, Zissels says, cannot be done simply by sending western weapons. “Putin will send more weapons, because he wants to keep the conflict hot.”

But, he adds, “in the 21st century we should not allow the world to be thrown back to the early 20th century by force.”

Could the West do more?

“The West really isn’t pressuring Putin,” he argues. “The sanctions aren’t working. For a (situation) like this, sanctions need to be global, and the world has proved incapable of this. In 1937, it wasn’t able to put those kinds of sanctions on Germany.”

Meanwhile, says Zissels — a member of a committee to choose the head of Ukraine’s new anti-corruption bureau — Ukraine is fighting its own internal battle with corruption. He is not confident it will end any time soon.

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“In Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other former Soviet countries it’s part of the culture and mentality. You can’t pull yourself out of the mud by your hair. To change the situation you need a critical mass of people who are ready to change.

“These are evolutionary processes, not revolutionary ones. The direction now is positive, but it’s very slow. The absence of law was the same in czarist and in communist times.”