“It is regrettable that the Japanese authorities are pursuing a path towards a new militarization of the country. They have become the heirs of that Japan which once faced an ignominious end,” said Medvedev during his visit to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on the island of Sakhalin, on the occasion of the Day of Victory over militaristic Japan and the end of the Second World War.
According to Medvedev, Japan is actively expanding its military infrastructure with US support, purchasing foreign weapons, lifting restrictions on the so-called Self-Defense Forces and military operations abroad, and “conducting military exercises near the Kuril Islands, which seriously complicates the situation in the region Asia-Pacific".
“Japan must learn the lessons of history, which we commemorate today, and fully recognize the outcome of the Second World War and do everything possible to avoid the flaring up of a third. Give up militaristic plans for the benefit of your own people,” stressed the deputy chairman of the Security Council.
Japan's defence ministry on Thursday sought a record $53 billion in next fiscal year's budget, part of its biggest military buildup since World War Two, aiming to double defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027.
Medvedev warned against attempts to Tokyo to “rewrite history, justify war crimes, cover up their perpetrators and, as in the middle of the last century, support another Nazi regime. This time, unfortunately, in Ukraine”.
He also noted that Japan is becoming increasingly more involved in a confrontation with Russia by providing military aid to Ukraine.
"It is also bad that Japan located nearby is more and more actively providing aid to the Kyiv regime and pulling itself into the military confrontation," Medvedev said.
Russia "continues fighting the Nazism, that sadly and regrettably raised its head in Ukraine now," the official noted. "Furthermore, with the support of Western sponsors that were our allies in those years, the years of the Great Patriotic War," he added.
MNA/PR