Japan to send aid to Ukraine

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Japan to send aid to Ukraine

Self-Defense Forces aircraft will not stop over India in order to deliver aid to Ukrainian evacuees, it was learned Tuesday.

The plan to send SDF aircraft to Poland and Romania after collecting them in the United Arab Emirates was approved by the ruling Liberal Democratic party at a meeting the same day.

The government initially assumed that the SDF aircraft would pick up aid supplies in India. India refused to allow SDF aircraft to land for the operation.

The approval of the SDF landing at the working level was overturned at the ministerial level according to Shozo Kudo, director of the LDP's First Cabinet Division. Masahisa Sato, chief of the party's Foreign Affairs Division, criticized the government for the lack of behind-the-scene coordination with the Indian side at the LDP meeting on Tuesday. I hope the government will reflect seriously on this, he said.

The SDF is expected to start the deliver operation in early May, instead of later this month as originally planned.

Japan is expected to send C- 2 transport aircraft to transport blankets and other supplies on a single flight per week until the end of June, according to a request from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Japan is planning to provide food assistance to Ukrainians who have fled Russia's invasion of their country and other people affected by the crisis.

It will be the first time for the Asian nation to send food items as part of its relief supplies provided in response to Russia's aggression. Japan plans to deliver packets of precooked rice, hardtack, canned food and other items to Poland, which has received a large number of evacuees from Ukraine.

The delivered goods will be transported to a Ukrainian government facility in Poland before being distributed to evacuees and people who remain in Ukraine.

Japan has donated $38 billion to the UN World Food Program to help those affected by the Ukraine crisis, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Japan, Sergiy Korsunsky, asked the government to send food items in response to moves such as a request by the Ukrainian ambassador to Japan.