July 14, 2023
VILINIUS – Japan will provide war-torn Ukraine with nonlethal equipment, including a system to detect drones, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Wednesday during a speech at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit meeting.
“The security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific are inseparable,” he said in Lithuania’s capital, where the NATO meeting took place. “The invasion of Ukraine is not a problem in Europe alone.”
The equipment will be provided from $30 million (about ¥4 billion) that Japan contributed to NATO’s trust fund.
In his speech, Kishida said he “welcomes the fact that our European comrades are becoming more involved in the Indo-Pacific.”
Kishida and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg agreed on the Japan-NATO Individually Tailored Partnership Program, a new framework cooperation document that specified 16 areas of cooperation, including cyberspace and outer space.