Prince Charles ‘compares Putin to Hitler’

Prince Charles was mired in controversy on Wednesday after he reportedly compared the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine to those of Adolf Hitler.

The heir to the throne made the apparently unguarded comment during a trip to a museum in Canada, in conversation with a Polish-born woman who had fled the Nazis as a child.

“I had finished showing him the exhibit and talked with him about my own family background and how I came to Canada,” Marienne Ferguson told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper.

“The prince then said: ‘And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler’.”

Ferguson, now 78, moved to Canada with her Jewish family when she was 13. She lost relatives in the Holocaust.

“I must say that I agree with him and am sure a lot of people do,” she told the newspaper.

But she added: “I was very surprised that he made the comment as I know they (the royal family) aren’t meant to say these things, but it was very heartfelt and honest.”

The remark made headlines around the world, and Russian media said it threatened to further “complicate” relations between Britain and Moscow.

The future king is due to meet with Putin in France on June 6 as part of the international commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

The prince’s office, Clarence House, said he had not intended to make a political statement.

“We do not comment on private conversations. But we would like to stress that the Prince of Wales would not seek to make a public political statement during a private conversation,” it said.

Ferguson met the prince as he and his wife Camilla conducted a tour of the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of a four-day trip to Canada.

She gave a similar account of their conversation to the BBC, but said it was “just a little remark, I didn’t think it was going to make such a big uproar”.