Russia has recently been said to be "east and west" is not stable, the west is the UNITED-led NATO is pressing forward step by step, and the east is Japan's frequent confrontation with Putin on territorial issues.
1. Ukraine "explains" the possible causes of the Russian invasion
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sounded the alarm, saying Russia could claim the need to protect citizens of the war-torn Donbass as a pretext for military action beyond its borders.
Zelenskiy's office posted the statement on its website on Tuesday after the Ukrainian leader met with a group of U.S. senators. The purpose of the visit by U.S. lawmakers is to reaffirm Washington's commitment to Kiev. Both leaders have warned that they fear a Russian invasion of Ukraine, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. The statement on the website reads, "The head of State draws attention to the fact that Russia continues to be active in its activities, issuing passports to populations in the territories we are temporarily occupying, in an attempt to create an escalation pretext under the guise of 'protection of Russian citizens'." ”
Zelenskiy warned last year that Russia was issuing passports to people in the Donbass region. Donbass is a region in eastern Ukraine where separatists established a secession-separated republic in 2014 and are currently engaged in an ongoing civil war with Ukrainian troops. Kiev accused Moscow of supporting the rebels and claimed that "passportization" of the residents of Donbass was the first step in Russia's plan to annex the region, which the Kremlin denied.
Ukrainian authorities announced last December that they would not accept Russian passports to people living in Donbass or Crimea. Crimea is controlled by Russia, but Ukraine considers it "temporarily occupied." According to kiev, the inhabitants of these areas are official Ukrainian citizens, and those holding Russian passports may be subject to sanctions.
The Donbass region, located in eastern Ukraine and bordering Russia, is home to Russians and a Russian-speaking minority. In 2014, after street protests overthrew the state government, Donetsk and Luhansk, two self-proclaimed "people's republics", declared that they would no longer be ruled by Kiev and declared autonomy. These divided territories maintain close relations with Moscow, but Russia does not recognize them as sovereign states, nor do any other country. The Kremlin urged Ukraine's leaders to work with separatists to resolve the current situation.
2. Japan claims sovereignty over the Kuril Islands
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshinori Hayashi said on Tuesday that Japan would not abandon its claim that Russia's Kuril Islands in the southern Pacific should belong to Japan and hoped to reach a deal with Moscow to resolve the dispute.
"Our sovereignty extends to the four northern islands, and our basic position is that we hope to sign a peace treaty after the territorial issue is resolved, and we intend to continue on this basis for ongoing negotiations," Lin Fang said. In response, Lavrov said that Japan refused to recognize the results of Soviet control of the Kuril Islands during World War II.
After the end of the conflict, the Soviet Union and Japan did not sign a peace treaty, and the sovereignty dispute became the main crux of the matter. Since then, the entire chain of islands has been under Moscow's control. For more than half a century, the two countries have tried to reach a solution to the islands, but Russia has repeatedly stressed that its sovereignty over these territories is indisputable.
Last year, newly appointed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reiterated that Tokyo would not sign a peace treaty with Moscow until a solution was found. In recent years, Russia has been seeking to strengthen the defenses of the Kuril Islands and deployed the Fortress missile system on Matua Island at the end of 2021. Matua, once a large base in Japan, is now home to all-weather Russian crews who will help control the Sea of Okhotsk, which sits between the island chain and the Russian mainland.