Some 70 Volunteers From Japan Reportedly Ready to Counter Russia in Ukraine

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed for foreign volunteers to join the fight against Russia, which is conducting a special military operation to demilitarise and "de-Nazify" Ukraine following a request for assistance by the Donbass republics.

About 70 volunteers from Japan are ready to join the ranks of mercenaries in the "foreign legion" of Ukraine, where a Russian special operation is under way, the newspaper Mainichi has cited an unnamed source in the Ukrainian Embassy in Tokyo as saying.

The source added without elaborating that the volunteers purportedly include 50 former servicemen from the Japan Self-Defence Forces.

The claims come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on foreign nationals who are "friends of peace and democracy" to travel to his country and fight against what he described as a "Russian invasion".

In an appeal published on the Ukrainian president's website last Sunday, Zelensky said the Ukrainian armed forces were in the process of setting up a foreign legion unit for international volunteers.

He urged "anyone who wants to join the defence of Ukraine, Europe, and the world" to "come and fight side by side with Ukrainians" against the Russian military.

Moscow, Kiev End First Round of Talks to Defuse Ukraine Tensions

The Mainichi report comes after the first round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials, who earlier agreed to meet in the Gomel region of Belarus to discuss resolving the Ukraine crisis.

The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters that during the five-hour talks, the sides focused on "all the items on the agenda and found some common points", on which they "predict common positions can be found".

He added that the negotiators reached an agreement to continue the talks, which are expected later this week in Belarus. The talks were preceded by the US and its Western allies imposing a new round of restrictive measures against Russia, which included closing their airspace to all Russian flights and sanctioning a number of Russian banks and officials. In addition, Berlin said that all Russian banks subjected to the sanctions will be excluded from the SWIFT payment system.

Russia retaliated by closing its airspace to air carriers from 36 countries, including Germany, Spain, and France as President Vladimir Putin signed a decree "On the application of special economic measures" against the US and its allies.

Last Thursday, he ordered a special military operation in Ukraine to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) from Kiev's forces following their request for assitstance amid growing attacks by the Ukrainian Army on their positions and infrastructure.

In a televised address, Putin stressed that the goal of the operation is "to protect people who have been subjected to abuse, genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years", adding that for this purpose, Russia "will strive to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine, as well as bring to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against peaceful residents, including citizens of the Russian Federation".