An embassy official reported on Wednesday that around 70 Japanese, mostly ex-members of the Self-Defense Forces, responded to the Ukrainian Embassy’s Twitter request (post is now deleted) for volunteers to fight the invading Russian troops.
Ukraine’s embassy in Tokyo had tweeted the same post the day President Volodymyr Zilenskyy asked foreigners to join an international legion organized to repel Russian forces.
Nearly all 70 Japanese who applied for visas on Tuesday were between 20 and 60 years old. According to the same official, the main reasons the volunteers stated for them wanting to fight include “not being able to forgive attacks on Ukraine by Russian forces” and also “wanting to end a war as a Japanese.”
Wednesday’s post about recruiting was later deleted. The embassy is now looking for volunteers to help in medicine, disaster prevention, and information technology.
Although it is unclear why the post was removed, answering foreign military recruit calls could violate Japanese law prohibiting private preparation or planning to wage war on another country.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno asked Japanese nationals not to travel to Ukraine, despite their purpose, during a press conference on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian government spokesperson stated that Ukraine already has evacuation order. He didn’t forget to mention that the embassy was also informed about the evacuation advisory.
Also, on Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi affirmed his knowledge on the matter of recruitment tweet from the embassy and linked it to the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s evacuation order for Japanese in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Embassy announced on Twitter that it had received donations of nearly 2 billion yen ($17.4million) from more than 60.000 Japanese citizens.
Source: JapanToday
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