Tag: Russia

It looks like the Russians are moving equipment from the Kamchatka peninsula and Kuril Islands over to to mainland to be transported over to the fight in Ukraine:

Emanual was there to see off a 38-ton shipment of nonlethal military supplies, including helmets and bulletproof vests, that Japan donated to Ukraine. 

Japan has reported spotting numerous Russia warships on the move in international waters near its northern borders this month.

Most recently, four Russian amphibious ships, traveling in pairs, were spotted east-northeast of Japan’s main island of Honshu on March 15 and 16, Japan’s Joint Staff said in a news release last week.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but Putin must be getting desperate if he is having to move equipment from the far reaches of Russia to fight the Ukrainians. Notice that the picture shows a ship filled with transport trucks. Shortages of trucks to move supplies into Ukraine has been something reported in the media that Russia has been lacking to sustain offensive operations.

This would be an interesting legal opinion to get on whether the Japanese pacifist constitution would allow them to conduct an offensive operation to reclaim land that was originally Japanese which is the case of the Kuril Islands. I doubt the Japanese would ever do such a thing though considering Russia’s nuclear arsenal:

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday during a House of Councillors committee session that the northern territories are being “occupied illegally by Russia.”

The government had avoided using such an expression to promote negotiations for a peace treaty that would address the northern territories issue, but has now changed its stance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

According to the Foreign Ministry, this is the first time a Japanese prime minister in the Diet has referred to an “illegal occupation” regarding the northern territories since 2009, when then Prime Minister Taro Aso used the expression. At that time, Russia criticized its use, saying it was an attempt to challenge Russia’s sovereignty.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

A Chinese academic Hu Wei is the vice-chairman of the Public Policy Research Center of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council has written an article that has been translated into English that provides some good analysis on how China should react to the current crisis in Ukraine. Ultimately He advocates for China breaking from Putin:

China should achieve the greatest possible strategic breakthrough and not be further isolated by the West. Cutting off from Putin and giving up neutrality will help build China’s international image and ease its relations with the U.S. and the West. Though difficult and requiring great wisdom, it is the best option for the future. The view that a geopolitical tussle in Europe triggered by the war in Ukraine will significantly delay the U.S. strategic shift from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region cannot be treated with excessive optimism. There are already voices in the U.S. that Europe is important, but China is more so, and the primary goal of the U.S. is to contain China from becoming the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific region. Under such circumstances, China’s top priority is to make appropriate strategic adjustments accordingly, to change the hostile American attitudes towards China, and to save itself from isolation. The bottom line is to prevent the U.S. and the West from imposing joint sanctions on China.

US-China Perception Monitor

I highly recommend reading the whole article at the link.

This is a list South Korea and Japan should be proud to be part of:

Russia has designated South Korea as an “unfriendly” nation after Seoul joined international sanctions against Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine, according to local reports Monday. 

The Russian government released a decree that South Korea is included on its list of “unfriendly states” that “have carried out unfriendly actions” against Russia, its nationals or entities, Moscow’s state news agency TASS reported. 

The United States, European Union states, Japan and several other nations that have imposed or joined sanctions against Russia following its attacks on Ukraine were also labeled as unfriendly states subject to restrictions imposed by Moscow.

Yonhap

You can read more at the list.

North Korea has commented for the first time about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it is about what you would expect, Russia has done nothing wrong and it is all the U.S.’s fault:

North Korea spoke on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the first time three days after the first attack. North Korea defended Russia and criticized the United States. However, Pyongyang did not specifically mention the details of Russia’s invasion and did not voice its views in an official statement released by the government, but instead released a comment by a researcher at the Society for International Politics Studies, implying the North’s complicated calculations behind the latest incident.

On February 26, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released on its website a post arguing that the U.S. should not tear down the foundation of international peace and stability in the name of Ri Ji-song, a researcher at the Society for International Politics Studies. Ri wrote that in every region and country that the U.S. intervened in, seeds of discord were being sowed and relationships between nations were deteriorating. He argued that this trend was being established like a principle and that this was the current international order. He further criticized, “The root cause of the Ukrainian crisis also lies in the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. which has held on solely to the unilateral sanction and pressure while pursuing only global hegemony and military supremacy in disregard of the legitimate demand of Russia for its security.” Ri cited comments by global media and experts and claimed it was no coincidence that they found the fundamental reason for the Ukrainian crisis in the “imbalance of power in Europe due to the unilateral expansion of NATO and its threat as well as the grave threat to the national security of Russia.”

Kyunghyang Shinmun

You can read more at the link, but notably no where in the statement does North Korea actually mention that Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

With things escalating in the Ukraine it makes me wonder if North Korea will be asked by the Russians to start a provocation cycle to split U.S. attention between two theaters?:

President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that Ukraine’s sovereignty must be respected and South Korea will join efforts for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Moon made the remarks during a National Security Council meeting convened after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in Ukraine after recognizing their independence.

“Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected,” he said. “Countries around the world must come together and work for a swift and peaceful resolution to the situation in Ukraine. South Korea will actively participate in these efforts as a responsible member of the international community.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

A joint Japanese and Russian naval fleet sailed around the main island of Honshu, Japan in response to the international community sailing ships through the Strait of Taiwan. The big difference between this exercise and the international community’s freedom of navigation patrols is that no one from Japan is shrieking about the exercise like the Chinese government routinely does after freedom of navigation patrols. This shows how secure the Japanese government is unlike the CCP which has to shriek after every international military exercise or freedom of navigation patrol to drum up internal nationalism to legitimize their rule:

 A combined Russian Navy and People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet concluded a sail in international waters east of Japan’s main island of Honshu and split off to their home ports on Saturday, all while being monitored by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships and aircraft during the voyage.

The Chinese ships were Type 055 destroyer Nanchang (101), Type 052D destroyer Kuming (172), Type 054 frigates Binzou (515) and Liuzhou (573) and the replenishment ship Dongpinghu (902). Russian ships were destroyers Admiral Tributs (564) and Admiral Panteleyev (548), corvettes Gromkiy (335) and Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339) and the missile range instrumentation ship Marshal Krylov (331).

The combined fleet had entered the Tsugaru Strait on Oct. 18 and since then had been sailing off Honshu. The Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Force issued a release and map on Saturday stating that the joint fleet had sailed through the Osumi Strait that day. Located between the Osumi Peninsula and Tanegashima Island, the strait connects the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. Following their sail through the Osumi Strait, the ships of the two countries separated at a location 130 kilometers, or about 81 miles, southeast of the Danjo Islands. 

USNI News

You can read more at the link.

This seems like an almost impossible task for Korean families members trying to find out what happened to their relatives that were conscripted to work on Sakhalin Island during World War II:

Historians say Japan forcibly mobilized around 30,000 Koreans as workers during the late 1930s and 1940s on what was then called Karafuto, or the Japanese-occupied southern half of Sakhalin, near the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

They endured grueling labor in coal mines and logging and construction sites as part of Imperial Japan’s wartime economy, which became heavily dependent on conscripted Korean labor when Japanese men were sent to war fronts.

Families thought their loved ones would return when Japan’s surrender in WWII cemented the Soviet Union’s full control over Sakhalin.

Soviet authorities repatriated thousands of Japanese nationals from Sakhalin. But they refused to send back the Koreans, who had become stateless after the war, apparently to meet labor shortages in the island’s coal mines and elsewhere.

Moscow’s attitude hardened further after Communist ally North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950; most of the Korean laborers in Sakhalin had come from the South.

South Korea and Russia established diplomatic relations in 1990 and about 4,000 Koreans have returned from Sakhalin since. But people like Shin who lost track of their relatives long before then have seen little progress.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but there are descendants from these Korean forced laborers that still live on Sakhalin Island that organizations sponsor to visit Korea.