A move by Japan to provide Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine will have “grave consequences” for Russia-Japan ties, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
Relations between Moscow and Tokyo, already difficult, have deteriorated sharply since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in Feb. 2022. Japan has joined its Western allies in imposing sweeping economic sanctions on Russia.
Last week, Japan said it would prepare to ship Patriot air defence missiles to the United States after revising its arms export guidelines, in Tokyo’s first major overhaul of such export curbs in nine years.
Oh, I know. It’s an amusing factoid that may be true on paper, but not in practice. Like how North Dakota technically wasn’t a state until 2012.
But it’s also essentially meaningless now because the two governments that declared war (Soviet Russia & Imperial Japan) no longer exist.
The debate over control of the northernmost Japanese islands, however, is a very real sore spot between Japan and Russia.