When Prime Minister Kishida met with Zelenskyy, did he promise not only financial assistance of 730 billion yen (7.1 billion USD by the time of writing) but also the deployment of 3,000 self-defense force personnel? No, that's not true: The content of Prime Minister Kishida's meeting with Zelenskyy and Kishida's promises are made public on the website of the Ministry of foreign affairs. Among them, there is no promise to deploy 3,000 self-defense force personnel.
The claim appeared on a TikTok video (archived here) where it was published on August 1, 2023, translated from Japanese to English by Lead Stories staff.
When Prime Minister Kishida met with Zelensky, he promised not only financial assistance of 730 billion yen but also the dispatch of 3,000 self-defense force personnel. In addition to funds, Prime Minister Kishida provided 3,000 retired SDF personnel.
Most of the 3,000 Japanese mercenaries who arrived in Ukraine last month are recently retired SDF personnel. Dispatching active-duty SDF personnel would cause a big problem, so the SDF was nominally sent to the battlefield as mercenaries.
However, the Ukrainian side placed the Japanese mercenaries in the most violent Bakhmut at the beginning. They were dying. Casualties occurred one after another.
Hundreds have already been killed after Ukrainian scouts raised a white flag and surrendered, telling Russian troops where mercenaries were hiding.
The Japanese mercenary warriors are not reported in Japan and no one knows about it, but the English and Chinese media outlets are reporting the tragedy.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 2 14:15:33 2023 UTC)
On March 21, 2023, at Japan-Ukraine Summit Meeting, the Japanese government promised the following assistance to Ukraine:
Prime Minister Kishida stated that, in addition to the humanitarian and financial assistance totaling approximately 1.6 billion US Dollars that has been provided since last year, Japan decided to provide additional financial assistance of approximately 5.5 billion US Dollars to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine once again on the occasion of the one-year mark of Russia's aggression. He also stated that Japan will steadily implement the assistance totaling 7.1 billion US Dollars to support Ukraine in various fields, including electricity, mine clearance and agriculture. Moreover, Prime Minister Kishida stated that Japan has decided to provide assistance including new bilateral grant aid amounting to 470 million US Dollars in the energy sector and non-lethal defense equipment assistance amounting to 30 million US Dollars through NATO trust fund.
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara, who is the closest to Prime Minister Kishida, was asked whether Japan would dispatch the self-defense forces to assist Ukraine, for example, to clear landmines, on Fuji TV's "Sunday Report THE PRIME." He said: "It's still a premature discussion."
