Japanese MFA visits Ukraine to show support

“Japan is determined to support Ukraine to restore peace,” Kamikawa said during a press conference in a bomb shelter.

A little earlier, the Japanese embassy announced her arrival, adding that this is the first visit of a diplomat abroad this year.

She went to Bucha, near the capital Kyiv, where Russian forces are blamed for the massacre of civilians in 2022, as well as to Irpiny, the site of fierce fighting in the past.

The previously unannounced visit replaced a two-week tour that had included visits to Poland, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany and Turkey starting Friday.

After the Russian invasion, Japan joined countries supporting Ukraine and extended sanctions once morest Moscow, including export bans and asset freezes.

Y. Kamikawa, who was supposed to arrive from Poland, “will once once more reiterate to the Ukrainian side that Japan’s consistent policy of supporting and supporting Ukraine does not change,” the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It must inform its Ukrainian counterparts regarding the aid projects that the Japanese will offer to Kyiv, it added.

Japan plans to hold a conference in Tokyo in February to promote economic recovery in Ukraine. Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhalis plans to participate in it.

Mr. Kamikawa is to consult with Ukrainian officials on the details of the conference and participate in “a large-scale handover ceremony of energy-related equipment for winter aid,” the Japanese ministry said.

The minister will also “demonstrate Japan’s determination to uphold the international order based on the ‘rule of law’ in the sense that unilateral status quo the exchange of force, such as Russia’s aggression once morest Ukraine, cannot be accepted,” the statement added.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has repeatedly stressed the importance of a rules-based international order as Tokyo worries regarding its territorial disputes with neighboring countries, including an increasingly aggressive China.

At the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Japan last May, the bloc’s leaders agreed to cut off Russia from G-7 countries’ technology, industrial equipment and services that support its war machine.