Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged support for Ukraine’s reconstruction at a conference Monday in Tokyo that brought together several hundred government and business leaders from the two countries.
“The war in Ukraine is still going on at this very moment and the situation is not easy,” Kishida said. “The promotion of economic reconstruction, however, is not only an investment for the future of Ukraine but also investing in Japan and the whole globe.”
Kishida also pledged to relax visa controls and announced the Japan External Trade Organization would open an office Kyiv.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the two countries signed more than 50 cooperation agreements, including “an intergovernmental convention on the avoidance of double taxation, which is extremely important for Japanese companies planning new projects in Ukraine.”
“By combining our powers ... we can change this challenge into an opportunity for future growth and prosperity,” Shmyhal said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Japan's experiences in reconstruction (from World War II) and its economic miracle provide us with inspiration.”
Japan has pledged more than $10 billion in aid for Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion two years ago. Most of that aid has been financial and humanitarian.
The World Bank, European Union and United Nations estimated in a report last week that Ukraine will need $486 billion for reconstruction efforts during the next decade.
As the Ukrainian and Japanese delegations met Monday, Ukraine’s air force reported fresh Russian aerial attacks, including four drones that Ukraine’s air defenses shot down.
The Ukrainian air force said the drones were intercepted over the Kharkiv region. There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties.
U.S. aid
The fall of the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka to Russia forces has intensified U.S. reactions from Democrats and Republicans alike on whether $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine — stalled in Congress — could allow Kyiv to push back Russian advances and steal Moscow’s momentum.
A White House statement said President Joe Biden tied the loss of the stronghold of Avdiivka in the southeastern Donetsk region to the stalled U.S. aid for Ukraine in a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday.
Despite the overwhelming support of the package by most Democrats and almost half the Republicans, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson insists he won’t be “rushed” into approving the $95.3 billion foreign aid package approved by a bipartisan Senate last week that includes the $60 billion in aid for Ukraine.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Democratic Senator Michael Bennet advocated for the aid saying, “just get it over there.”
“They’ve just had their first defeat, the Ukrainians, since last May, partly as a result of the fact that they are outgunned 10-to-1 by the Russians. We can help solve that problem for them and we should,” Bennet said.
But Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican and ally of Trump, said “the problem in Ukraine … is that there’s no clear end point" and that the U.S. doesn't make enough weapons to support wars in eastern Europe, the Middle East and “potentially a contingency in East Asia."
If the package goes through, "that is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield,” Vance argued, pointing out that America’s manufacturing capacity has its limits.
“Can we send the level of weaponry we’ve sent for the last 18 months?” he asked. “We simply cannot. No matter how many checks the U.S. Congress writes, we are limited there.”
In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney said Congress should pass the bipartisan bill Ukrainians need so urgently and added House Speaker Johnson has the power to make that happen.
“If he wanted to, today, announce he is going to call the House of Representatives back into session he could put the bill that has already passed the Senate onto the floor of the House for a vote tomorrow, to be on Joe Biden’s desk by tomorrow night and the aid to be flown to Ukraine.”
At a global security conference in Munich on Saturday, Zelenskyy urged allies to plug a shortage of weapons and expressed hope that the U.S. Congress would make a "wise decision" in approving a delayed large aid package for Ukraine.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
