Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida paid a lightning visit to Ukraine on the 21st and held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

After the meeting, the two signed a joint statement and held a joint press conference.

(European News Agency)

Kishida, Zelensky meet, agree Taiwan Strait stability is crucial to global security

[Special Commissioner Lin Cuiyi in Japan/Report from Tokyo on the 22nd] Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who paid a lightning visit to Ukraine, held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the evening of the 21st, promising to provide Uzbekistan with a value of 30 million U.S. dollars (approximately 9.2 100 million Taiwan dollars) of non-lethal equipment, and announced the provision of four more in energy and other fields.

700 million U.S. dollars (about 14.3 billion Taiwan dollars) in free aid.

The joint statement issued after the meeting, in addition to jointly condemning Russia's aggression against Ukraine and will pursue accountability in accordance with international law, also emphasized that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are crucial to global security and prosperity, encouraged peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues, and expressed seriousness over the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. concerns and strongly opposes any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion.

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Japan and Ukraine elevated to 'special global partnership'

The joint statement again called on Russia to "cease hostilities and immediately and unconditionally withdraw all troops and equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine", and condemned Russia's threat to use nuclear weapons as a "serious and unacceptable threat".

Kishida and Zelensky reiterated that Russia's aggression against Ukraine not only poses a direct threat to the security, peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific and other regions from Europe to the Atlantic Ocean, but maintaining and strengthening sanctions against Russia is indispensable to curb Russia's war behavior In short, calling on "third countries" not to evade and undermine these measures is obviously criticizing China without naming names.

Kishida and Zelensky met for the first time in Kiev, including meals, talks and a joint press conference, which lasted about two hours and forty minutes.

In order to strengthen the relationship between the two countries, the two sides agreed to upgrade the relationship between Japan and Ukraine to a "special global partnership" and start negotiations towards the conclusion of an "intelligence protection agreement" that can exchange classified information.

Kishida also invited Zelensky to attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima in May through a video link.

Kishida Yun aided Uzbekistan with 920 million equipment and another 14.3 billion for free

During the talks, Kishida pledged to provide Ukraine with an additional $30 million worth of non-lethal equipment, possibly including body armor, through the NATO trust fund.

At the joint press conference, Kishida said that before the G7 Hiroshima summit, "we must come to Ukraine in person anyway", showing the unshakable solidarity between Japan and Ukraine.

Japan's ruling and opposition parties have a positive attitude towards Kishida's visit to Udo, and Yoichi Takahashi, a scholar who served as a strategist for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for many years, also spoke highly of Kishida's visit.

Takahashi said that during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Russia, Kishida made a lightning trip to Ukraine, and the timing was very clever. Without this trip to Ukraine, the recent international news would probably be dominated by the China-Russia summit, especially as Xi Jinping seems to have the intention to do so. After visiting Russia, he visited Ukraine to promote the "fake peace" plan proposed by China. Kishida stepped into Ukraine one step earlier than Xi Jinping, which was tantamount to breaking Xi Jinping's layout.

As China is suspected of intentionally supplying Russian weapons, Takahashi pointed out that Kishida's promise to provide Ukraine with "non-lethal equipment" also has a restraining effect on China, making it difficult for China, which is playing the "peace card", to make a move.

After Kishida stayed in Ukraine for about eight hours, he took the train back to Poland on the 22nd and held talks with Polish President Duda. The two sides agreed to cooperate in supporting Ukraine.

Even though the round-trip train journey from Poland to Ukraine lasted 20 hours, Kishida did not show signs of fatigue when he arrived in Warsaw. The Sankei Shimbun reported that foreign media privately called Kishida the "Iron Prime Minister".

Kishida is scheduled to return to Japan on the 23rd.