Russia announced Wednesday it has indefinitely banned 63 Japanese citizens including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida from ever entering the country over joining Washington’s anti-Russia campaign in response to the Ukraine war. The ban was retaliation against Japan for sanctions it imposed after Russia’s operation in the Ukraine.
“The administration of Fumio Kishida launched an unprecedented anti-Russian campaign, allowing unacceptable rhetoric against the Russian Federation, including slander and direct threats,” railed the Russian Foreign Ministry in its statement Wednesday.
The Foreign Ministry accused the Japanese government of being “completely biased” and tainted by “the attitudes of the West towards our country.” Kishida enraged Moscow in April by referring to Russia’s slaughter of Ukrainian civilians as a “war crime” that left him in “deep shock.”
Other Japanese officials banned from entering Russia included Kishida’s cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, Foreign Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, Finance Minister Shun’ichi Suzuki, and Defense Minister Nobuo Kisi. Russia also banned some Japanese businessmen and media figures, including executives from the publisher of Japan’s top newspaper.
Diplomatic tensions have also risen of late due to Japan early last month removing Ukraine’s Azov battalion from its designated list of recognized terror and neo-Nazi groups. Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Galuzin had said at the time that Japan initiated the official change in status regarding Azov…
“I think that the actions the corresponding Japanese structures undertook to exclude the Azov nationalist battalion from the category of neo-Nazi organizations stem from the fact that Japan, like other Group of Seven nations, supports the Kiev regime in all its actions, including those against the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics,” according to TASS.
This fresh move to bar Japanese top officials is said to be in response to an “unprecedented anti-Russian campaign.”
“It is echoed by public figures, experts and media representatives of Japan, who are completely engaged in the attitudes of the West towards our country,” the statement continued. Tensions have also ratcheted in regional waters where Russia has been angered over planned US-Japan naval exercises in waters close to Russian Kuril islands.