By October 28, 2022, Mainichi Shimbun withdrew an article stating that there was no one at the Japanese embassy in Ukraine who could understand Ukrainian and apologized for the underlying mistake.
In response to the report, readers criticized the Foreign Ministry’s sloppy staff allocation, causing an uproar even when opposition parties questioned it in the Diet. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies the claim, saying it is not true.
“Scandalous information that the Farnesina wants to keep hidden”
On 21 October, Mainichi Shimbun published a web article titled “The Japanese Embassy in Ukraine is not flexible enough”. The writer is Kazuhisa Ogawa, a military analyst.
The article refers to the Japanese embassy in Ukraine, which resumed operations on 5 October for the first time in seven months, accusing it of being unusually slow to resume operations compared to the G7 countries.
He claimed that there was a “serious secret” in the background and said: “In this article, I would like to convey to the Japanese people a part of the reality of Japanese diplomacy, which can be called a scandal, which has not been passed on to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Yoshimasa Hayashi. ” I’ve warned.
According to Mr. Ogawa, in July he obtained an e-mail exchanged between the secretary of the Japanese embassy in Ukraine and a Ukrainian public institution, stating: “From time to time, however, this is outrageous information that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to keep hidden “. he was caught off guard, “conveying the degree of shock within.
In response to the Russian-language email from the Ukrainian side, the secretary demanded that the letter be written in English and said the reason was that “there is not a single person at the Japanese embassy who understands Ukrainian. “.
Ogawa stressed the gravity of the situation, saying, “This is a very serious problem” and added: “Furthermore, the email was written in Russian, which is widely understood by many Ukrainian citizens, but they thought it was in Ukrainian. so they asked for an answer in English. I think the number of people who speak Russian is limited in the embassy, ”he speculated that the function was not working properly.
“Resentfully, ‘There is no one’ …”
The article received a lot of attention and criticism of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs circulated on social media, saying: “The outrageous laziness and abomination of the ministry” and “This is terrible. We cannot protect the Japanese people.” On the other hand, some former embassy officials and international political scientists questioned the authenticity of the statement.
J-CAST News confirmed the facts with the Press Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 28th and claimed to have replied to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on the 26th.
On this day, the member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Daito Aoyama said: “There was not a single person (at the embassy) who could understand Russian or Ukrainian. One day, such a thing leaked and reported “. of Foreign Affairs for his opinion, saying, “ If this happens, the audience will say, ‘What is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs doing?’
Masashi Nakagome, director general of the European Affairs Office, dismissed the report, saying: “The report that there is no Ukrainian-language foreign ministry official at the Japanese embassy in Ukraine is not true. “. He said that even after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, he constantly assigned personnel specialized in each language.
Mainichi Shimbun’s article that triggered the incident was deleted on the 28th. The newspaper’s editorial team said: “The e-mail I received should have said:” Not everyone in the Japanese embassy can speak Ukrainian “and the expression “Nobody can speak Ukrainian.” Admitting that there was a misunderstanding of the facts, he apologized saying, “I apologize and will delete the article at the author’s request to ensure accuracy.”
Ogawa also tweeted: “In connection with the fact that the Japanese embassy did not work in the case that I was involved, it must be said that” there is only a limited number of people who understand Ukrainian at the Japanese embassy ” ., I was so angry that I ended up expressing that “there is none,” he revealed.
