Now, Japanese men answered Ukrainian calls for foreign army volunteers: reports

Shop: Keiichi Kurogi is one of the dozen men in Japan which offers to join “International Legion” to fight Russian invaders after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy calls for volunteers.

Kurogi, a 39-year-old office worker who lives in southwest Japan, told Reuters that he called the Ukrainian embassy on Monday after seeing his request for volunteers on Twitter.

“When I see pictures of men and elderly women in Ukraine holding weapons and going ahead, I feel you have to go to their place,” he said.

Embassies refused the offer of Kurogi to fight, told him that he did not have the necessary military experience.

On Tuesday, 70 Japanese men – including 50 former members of the Japanese defense forces and two French foreign legion veterans – have been applied to volunteer, the MainChi Shimbun newspaper, citing Tokyo companies who handle volunteers.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian Embassy admitted to receiving a call from people “wanted to fight for Ukraine,” but refused to provide further details.

A February social media post from the embassy thanked Japan for many of their questions about volunteers but adding provisions.

“Every candidate for this must have experience in Japanese self-defense forces or have undergone special training,” he said.

In a new post on Twitter on Wednesday, the Ukrainian Embassy in Japan said he was looking for volunteers with medical, IT, communication, or firefighters. Not immediately clear whether the volunteer position remotely or involved in traveling to Ukraine.

Japan has told its citizens to travel to Ukraine for any reason, warning reiterated on Wednesday by the Head of the Cabinet Secretary of Hirokazu Matsuno, who said he was aware of reports on volunteers.

“The Japanese Foreign Ministry has issued an evacuation advisor for all Ukrainians and we want people to stop all trips to Ukraine, regardless of the purpose of their visit,” he told a press conference.

“We communicate with the Ukrainian Embassy in Japan and show that the evacuation advisor is in place.”

Japan said on Wednesday for a while it would close his embassy in Kyiv considering the increasing danger in the capital.

Japanese gave

The war in Ukraine has stirred out strong emotions in Japan, which has a post-war pacifist constitution that has been presented back in recent years to allow Japan to conduct collective self-defense or allied assistance.

Hundreds gathered to protest against Russian invasion last week in Tokyo, while the Ukrainian Embassy said it collected $ 17 million in contributions from around 60,000 people in Japan after submitting a request for online aid.

One of them is Ryoga Seki, a 23-year-old computer science that studies computer science in graduate school in Osaka, who donates full month wages from part-time les work – 100,000 yen ($ 868) – to Ukraine.

“There are many people here, like me, who want to do something but can’t move now,” he said, adding that it was a massive donation and the maximum number he could move at one time from it. bank.

The Kurogy, he insisted that he would volunteer again if Ukraine changed the requirements.

“I am from a generation who doesn’t know the war at all,” he said. “It’s not I want to go to war, more than that I prefer to go than seeing children forced to carry weapons.”