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Kyodo

Former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori, known as a gaffe-prone veteran politician, on Wednesday urged the government against excessive support for Ukraine, saying Russia will not lose its ongoing war in the Eastern European nation.
“I wonder why” Japan has put in “such a big effort to support Ukraine,” the 85-year-old member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said in a speech at a reception that was also attended by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Mori added that Tokyo “had built relations” with Moscow, which invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
“It is unthinkable that Russia would lose the war. If that happened, something harder would happen,” said Mori, who was active in strengthening bilateral ties with Moscow through talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian ex-President Medvedev says Japanese PM should disembowel himself
Mori served as Japanese prime minister only for about one year from April 2000, as the approval ratings for his Cabinet struggled against the backdrop of his repeated gaffs.
After he retired as a lower house lawmaker about a decade ago, Mori met with Putin as a special envoy of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated during an election campaign speech in early July last year.
In November, Mori also said at a political gathering in Tokyo that he could not “quite understand why only President Putin has been criticised,” while saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been “making many Ukrainian people suffer”.
Kishida told parliament on Wednesday that he would consider an invitation to visit Kyiv extended by Zelensky, depending on the circumstances. The ruling party No 2, Toshimitsu Motegi, said such a visit would be desirable.


On Tuesday, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the government’s top spokesman, said Japan will “continue to offer assistance” to people in Ukraine, who have been facing a “national crisis”.
Mori was the chief organiser of the Tokyo Olympics, which was postponed one year from 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but resigned in February 2021 before the games began after coming under fire over his remark that meetings involving women tend to drag on.


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Yoshiro Mori cast doubt on Japan’s excessive support for the war-torn nation, adding Tokyo ‘had built relations’ with Moscow
His comments come as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida considers a visit to Kyiv


Yoshiro Mori cast doubt on Japan’s excessive support for the war-torn nation, adding Tokyo ‘had built relations’ with Moscow.


Ex-PM Mori questions Japan’s support for Ukraine, says Russia losing war ‘unthinkable’

Yoshiro Mori cast doubt on Japan’s excessive support for the war-torn nation, adding Tokyo ‘had built relations’ with Moscow His comments come as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida considers a visit to Kyiv

Yoshiro Mori cast doubt on Japan’s excessive support for the war-torn nation, adding Tokyo ‘had built relations’ with Moscow

His comments come as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida considers a visit to Kyiv