Russia Reminds Japan Providing Patriot Missile Defense System to Ukraine Has Serious Consequences

Spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova. (Source: Russian Foreign Ministry Press Office)

JAKARTA - Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Japan's move to provide the Patriot air defense system to Ukraine had "serious consequences" for Moscow-Tokyo relations.

Relations between Moscow and Tokyo, already difficult, have deteriorated sharply since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022. Japan decided to join Western allies in imposing sweeping economic sanctions on Russia.

Last week, the Land of the Rising Sun said it would prepare to send Patriot air defense missiles to the United States after revising its arms export guidelines, in Tokyo's first major overhaul of such arms export restrictions in nine years.

Although Japan's new export controls still prevent arms shipments to countries at war, they could indirectly benefit Ukraine in its war with Russia, as it gives the United States extra capacity to provide military aid to Kyiv.

"The Japanese lost control of weapons that Washington can now use to do whatever they want," Zakharova said in a weekly briefing, as reported by Reuters, December 27.

"It cannot be denied, based on the scheme that has been tested, Patriot missiles will reach Ukraine," he said.

Such a scenario would be "interpreted as an act of hostility towards Russia and would have major consequences for Japan in the context of bilateral relations," he said.

Earlier this month, Japan and South Korea deployed jets to monitor joint flights of Chinese bombers and fighters with Russia near their territory.

It is known that Russia and Japan have not reached an agreement that officially ends hostilities in the Second World War, due to a long-standing territorial dispute involving a series of Pacific islands known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils.

Even before the Ukraine conflict, Tokyo had complained about Russia's increasing military deployment on the islands, which the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of the Second World War.