MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/. Moscow will take resolute countermeasures, if Tokyo provides lethal weapons for the Ukrainian military, Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Andrey Nastasyin has said
"In case Japanese military lethal products are supplied to the Ukrainian military we will consider such actions by Tokyo as unambiguously hostile and reserve the right to take the most resolute countermeasures, including those in the context of bilateral relations with Japan," Nastasyin told a news briefing.
According to the official, "the renewal of the agreement between Japan and the United States on the parameters of lethal arms exports is another in a series of steps by Tokyo along the path of systematic dismantling of pacifist self-restrictions in its defense policy."
"This time the green light has been given to delivering to the United States military products manufactured in Japan under US licenses," he noted. "At the same time, Tokyo and Washington cynically try to refer to the 1954 bilateral agreements on mutual defense assistance, omitting that the document prohibits the inclusion in such assistance of weapons that can be used for offensive or other purposes that by no means help ensure peace and security."
Both sides, Nastasyin pointed out, "no longer make a secret of the fact that the new agreements concern the export to the United States of Japanese-made anti-missile missiles for the Patriot surface-to-air missile system."
"We have virtually no doubt that these missiles may end up in Ukraine, which will inevitably have serious negative consequences for global and regional security," Nastasyin stressed.