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KIEV, Ukraine — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed during an historic first visit to Ukraine on Saturday, June 6, to spearhead a global drive to resolve the crisis threatening to splinter the ex-Soviet state.
Abe told Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko on the eve of a summit meeting of the world’s most economically advanced nations that he “resolutely” opposed a military solution to the conflict roiling the troubled country’s separatist east. (TIMELINE: Unreast in east Ukraine)
His visit coincided with a sharp escalation in fighting that claimed the life of one more government soldier overnight.
“Japan, as a country that next year will chair the Group of Seven, will do everything possible to find a peaceful solution to the problems facing Ukraine today,” Abe said during a joint appearance with Poroshenko.
The Japanese leader added through a translator that he respected Ukraine’s “sovereignty, rule of law and territorial integrity.”
The first official trip to Ukraine by a Japanese head of state comes as Tokyo’s relations with Moscow — already battered by a decades-old row over rights to a small chain of islands — are experiencing still more strain.
Japan has contributed more than a billion dollars to a global rescue package for Kiev and blacklisted Russians it suspects of playing a key role in seizing Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula last year.
And Poroshenko is trying to mobilize top world leaders who meet in Germany on Sunday into crafting an even tougher response to what he sees is a clear attempt by Russia to either break up or at the very least severely damage Ukraine.
The embattled Ukrainian leader spoke on Friday to both US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — an ally who together with French President Francois Hollande helped craft the truce now threatening to fall apart.
He is also due to host Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper later on Saturday.
Rallying G7 against Russia
This week’s flareup in fighting has killed around 30 Ukrainian soldiers and scores of civilians. The pro-Russian rebels rarely report their exact losses but have also admitted to suffering heavy casualties.
Poroshenko called Abe’s visit to Kiev of great “historic and symbolic value.”
“We highly value Japan’s resolute decision not to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea,” said Poroshenko.
Russia angrily denies involvement in Ukraine’s separatist crisis and argues that Crimea’s residents had themselves voted to secede from Ukraine in March 2014.
That vote followed the deployment of Russian forces across the Black Sea region and had been condemned as illegal by most of the international community.
The so-called Minsk Agreement that Merkel and Hollande helped to forge in the Belarussian capital in February is now being tested by the warring sides’ decision to return their biggest guns to the front.
Kiev accuses the fighters of trying to seize a small town on the outskirts of their de facto capital Donetsk. Weeks of incessant exchanges of rocket and artillery fire have also smashed homes just east of the strategic Sea of Azov port of Mariupol.
The military command in Kiev said on Saturday morning that the previous 24 hours saw the rebels stage dozens of attacks with 122-millimeter howitzers and other types of heavy weapons that should have been withdrawn weeks ago.
The guerrillas accuse Kiev’s forces of starting the fighting and killing numerous civilians in and around Donetsk. — Dmytro Gorshkov/AFP/Rappler.com
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