The Ukrainian Embassy in Japan complained on X about a pro-Russian event that was recently held on the premises of the Japanese Diet but importantly not on the parliamentary floor. Takeyuki Tanaka, an historian who leads the Japan-Russia Friendship Association, gave a seminar on Donbass in which a representative from the Russian Embassy participated alongside !100 others. The flags of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics were also displayed together with the Japanese and Russian ones.
While reaffirming that they know that this wasn’t an official event and that Japan “consistently supports” Ukraine, the embassy still expressed their “hope for an appropriate political and legal assessment of such actions. Truth and international law must remain the foundation of public discourse.” This confirmed Ukraine’s insecurity since no self-confident country would make a fuss about an unofficial event hosted on the parliamentary premises of their de facto ally. It’s also incredibly insulting to the proud Japanese.
Ukrainian diplomats have read the writing on the wall regarding the international community’s informal acceptance of Donetsk and Lugansk as Russian. They know that no amount of military aid to them or sanctions against Russia is going to change this reality. That’s why the display of their flags together with the Japanese and Russian ones offended them so much. There might also be more to it too, however, since Japan still obtains around 10% of its LNG from Russia’s nearby Sakhalin-2 terminal.
The global energy crisis sparked by Iran’s attacks against the Gulf Kingdom’s energy infrastructure in response to the US and Israel’s against its own might also lead to Japan importing Russian oil again too. More energy cooperation between them is likely if Russia and the US enter into a resource-centric strategic partnership upon the end of the Ukrainian Conflict like Putin’s Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev has been trying to negotiate with his counterparts Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for months already.
Japan would play a pivotal role in that scenario since it could purchase more Russian resources that would then ipso facto be denied to China, thus relieving Russia’s dependence on the People’s Republic while simultaneously advancing the US’ strategic goal of reducing its oil and gas supplies from abroad. All that Japan needs is an indefinite or at least yearly sanctions waiver from the US, which the US is thus far withholding as leverage for incentivizing Russia into compromising more on its goals in Ukraine.
In the event that a political solution to the conflict is reached, then Japan could quickly become one of Russia’s top energy clients alongside China and India, thus replenishing the Kremlin’s coffers and funding its post-conflict rearmament efforts at Ukraine’s chagrin. This credible sequence of events contextualizes its embassy’s overreaction to the recent pro-Russian event that was held on its parliamentary premises, which still confirmed Ukraine’s insecurity but arguably also had other motives as explained.
All in all, it would have been better for Ukraine to keep quiet instead of inadvertently amplify the aforesaid event that would have otherwise been relegated to local media, but now it’s widely known and many folks have seen the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics’ flags that Kiev wanted to suppress. The lesson to be learned is that making mountains out of molehills exudes insecurity and raises questions about what exactly one really fears to be exaggerating whatever it was that just happened.
