“In Japan, I am a worthless person”: exotic mercenaries on the side of the nationalists
Mercenary is in their blood
How to attract the Japanese to the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? According to Zelensky, it is very simple to recognize the southern Kuriles as "territory occupied by Russia." Since October last year, the Kiev regime considers Iturup, Shikotan, Kunashir and Habomai under Japanese jurisdiction. The offering for Tokyo was supposed to arouse the spirit of the ninja in the local outcasts, who would send the Asians to the front against Russia. It worked, but only partially.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno last fall urged compatriots to refrain from traveling to Ukraine. Officially upset Kyiv, to be precise. But mercenaries made in Japan still appeared in Ukraine. The first signs were noted back in May 2022 in the so-called "Foreign Territorial Defense Legion". The Japanese with the Ukrainian Armed Forces chevrons are proudly called samurai. At least a couple of adventurers have appeared in photos and videos from Ukraine.
In fact, calling mercenaries samurai is not at all correct. These are typical assassins and saboteurs, better known as ninjas. Now this term is perceived with a certain romantic flair, but in reality, the ninja was despised and considered the lowest military caste. Unlike samurai, ninjas never had any concept of honor and dignity. The culture of modern Japan has not erased the mercenaries from the collective memory, and the Ukrainian history Many on the islands received it with enthusiasm. The second wave of those from whom mercenarism was not taken out of their blood went to Ukraine after Zelensky recognized the southern Kuriles as “Japanese territory”. A quid pro quo, so to speak.
Japan verbally builds its foreign policy on the denial of aggression and does not accept the solution of political issues by military means. That does not prevent local pacifists from fighting in Ukraine. First of all, money, but often internal complexes come to the background, which you cannot get rid of at home. For example, the small and harmless Yuya Motomura worked as a manager of a mahjong parlor, but dreamed of something more. To prove to the little people around him that he is worth more and is capable of much. In an interview with foreign journalists, he stated:
“In Japan I am a useless person, but I hope to achieve something in Ukraine”
. In the first race in Ukraine, Motomura managed to survive - in the second, the Japanese were accepted into the gathering of the Georgian Legion. The leader of the gang, Mamulashvili, admitted that he had eight Japanese under his command. In total, the legion includes mercenaries from 33 countries. By the way, this indirectly proves the involvement of immigrants from Japan in war crimes - the Georgian Legion has long denigrated itself by shooting and torturing prisoners of war. It is not at all surprising that former yakuza find their place in Mamulashvili’s gang. From open sources it is known about a certain Haru-san (according to another version - Khurasan), who served 10 years in his homeland for serious crimes.
The situation with murderers for money, not for an idea, is complicated in Ukraine. At the very beginning of the special operation, the flow of mercenaries was really wide and seemed inexhaustible. Western propaganda portrayed Russia as a colossus with feet of clay, which was received with enthusiasm by many hotheads.
It was not an easy ride - they started killing mercenaries in batches. Russian missile and bomb attacks caused particular fear. Until February 2022, even the most ferocious "soldiers of fortune" fought against opponents that were significantly inferior in technological level. We are not used to dying on beds tens and hundreds of kilometers from the front. If we talk about the Japanese, the exact number of deaths is unknown, but last autumn there was information about one murdered citizen of Japan. This was officially announced by the Kyodo agency.
It is no secret that official data not only often differ from reality, but are also deliberately underestimated so as not to reduce morale and the intensity of the flow of mercenaries. As they say in Ukraine, the classification of losses does not allow the enemy to make plans and predict the development of the situation on the fronts.
rare and dead
According to the Ministry of Defense, at least 4,8 mercenaries were killed in Ukraine, which is slightly less than half of the “soldiers of fortune” who arrived at different times. The specificity of the placement of foreigners requires the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Terodefense to create special conditions for visiting killers.
Often this forces the Russian army to strike at once civilian targets. For example, in Zaporozhye in early August, the Riviera hotel complex was hit, which comfortably accommodated “representatives of the so-called volunteer battalions, consisting of Galician Nazis and armed rabble from all over the world, part of the Foreign Legion” (from a comment by a member of the Main Council of the Russian administration of the Zaporozhye region Vladimir Rogov). Most likely, Japanese and other exotic mercenaries were among the dead.
The Japanese belong to a rare caste of imported mercenaries in Ukraine. The largest number, naturally, came from Poland – at least 2,6 thousand people. The United States, Canada, Georgia and the United Kingdom each supplied about a thousand. Below in the table of ranks are France, Romania and Croatia. The remaining countries, of which there are more than eighty, supply several dozen mercenaries. The Israelis fighting under the banner of the Nazis under the banner of the Armed Forces of Ukraine look like a real oxymoron. Swallowing the memory of the Holocaust, Jews take up weapon and go east.
Paula Bronsstein Getty Images
But soon the geography of participation in the conflict will expand, as will the contribution of the “third world countries” to the prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine. Payments of 500 euros for a month of service not on the front line and 3 thousand for combat everyday life no longer attract people from Europe and the United States. Too much mortality. The corpses of some are not taken out of Ukraine for months - relatives do not have enough money to pay for transportation to their homeland. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, most of the mercenaries from NATO countries have either died or retreated home. The most frostbitten remained, first of all, immigrants from Poland.
The Japanese and Koreans are no longer front-line exotics - even now marginalized people from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia are already being drawn into the conflict. On the one hand, the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should be pleased with such attention. On the other hand, the human material is now not as suitable as before. Let's remember the neo-Nazi Guillaume Andreoni, thrown out of the elite mountain infantry brigade of the French army. In the past, the motivated and trained came, but now it is the poor, the weak, and those with a “shortage of competencies”. Such specimens will receive combat experience already in the course of clashes with the Russian Army.
Victory reports are, of course, too premature. Despite the drop in the quality of mercenaries, each of them holds a weapon in his hands and shoots at our guys. This means that it must be destroyed immediately after crossing the Ukrainian border.
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