As Ukrainian leaders continue to express concerns about the fate of lasting aid from Western partners, two allies voiced strong backing on January 7, with Japan saying it was “determined to support” Kyiv while Sweden said its efforts to assist Ukraine will be its No. 1 foreign policy goal in the coming years.
"Japan is determined to support Ukraine so that peace can return to Ukraine," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said during a surprise visit to Kyiv, becoming the first official foreign visitor for 2024.
"I can feel how tense the situation in Ukraine is now," she told a news conference -- held in a shelter due to an air-raid alert in the capital at the time -- alongside her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
"I once again strongly condemn Russia's missile and drone attacks, particularly on New Year's Day," she added, while also saying Japan would provide an additional $37 million to a NATO trust fund to help purchase drone-detection systems.
The Japanese diplomat also visited Bucha, the Kyiv suburb where Russian forces are blamed for a civilian massacre in 2022, stating she was "shocked" by what occurred there.
In a Telegram post, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked "Japan for its comprehensive support, as well as significant humanitarian and financial assistance."
In particular, he cited Tokyo's "decision to allocate $1 billion for humanitarian projects and reconstruction with its readiness to increase this amount to $4.5 billion through the mechanisms of international institutions."
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Meanwhile, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told a Stockholm defense conference that the main goal of the country’s foreign policy efforts in the coming years will be to support Kyiv.
“Sweden’s military, political, and economic support for Ukraine remains the Swedish government’s main foreign policy task in the coming years,” he posted on social media during the event.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking via video link, told the conference that the battlefield in his country was currently stable but that he remained confident Russia could be defeated.
"Even Russia can be brought back within the framework of international law. Its aggression can be defeated," he said.
Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive last summer largely failed to shift the front line, giving confidence to the Kremlin’s forces, especially as further Western aid is in question.
Ukraine has pleaded with its Western allies to keep supplying it with air defense weapons, along with other weapons necessary to defeat the invasion that began in February 2022.
U.S. President Joe Biden has proposed a national-security spending bill that includes $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, but it has been blocked by Republican lawmakers who insist Biden and his fellow Democrats in Congress address border security.
Zelenskiy also urged fellow European nations to join Ukraine in developing joint weapons-production capabilities so that the continent is able to "preserve itself" in the face of any future crises.
"Two years of this war have proven that Europe needs its own sufficient arsenal for the defense of freedom, its own capabilities to ensure defense," he said.
Overnight, Ukrainian officials said Russia launched 28 drones and three cruise missiles, and 12 people were wounded by a drone attack in the central city of Dnipro.
Though smaller in scale than other recent assaults, the January 7 aerial attack was the latest indication that Russia has no intention of stopping its targeting of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, often far from the front lines.
In a post to Telegram, Ukraine’s air force claimed that air defenses destroyed 21 of the 28 drones, which mainly targeted locations in the south and east of Ukraine.
"The enemy is shifting the focus of attack to the frontline territories: the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions were attacked by drones," air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian TV.
Russia made no immediate comment on the attack.
In the southern city of Kherson, meanwhile, Russian shelling from across the Dnieper River left at least two people dead, officials said.
In the past few months, Ukrainian forces have moved across the Dnieper, setting up a small bridgehead in villages on the river's eastern banks, upriver from Kherson. The effort to establish a larger foothold there, however, has faltered, with Russian troops pinning the Ukrainians down, and keeping them from moving heavier equipment over.
Over the past two weeks, Russia has fired nearly 300 missiles and more than 200 drones at targets in Ukraine, as part of an effort to terrorize the civilian population and undermine morale. On December 29, more than 120 Russian missiles were launched at cities across Ukraine, killing at least 44 people, including 30 in Kyiv alone.
Ukraine’s air defenses have improved markedly since the months following Russia’s mass invasion in February 2022. At least five Western-supplied Patriot missile batteries, along with smaller systems like German-made Gepard and the French-manufactured SAMP/T, have also improved Ukraine’s ability to repel Russian drones and missiles.
Last week, U.S. officials said that Russia had begun using North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles as part of its aerial attacks on Ukrainian sites.
Inside Russia, authorities in Belgorod said dozens of residents have been evacuated to areas farther from the Ukrainian border.
“On behalf of regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, we met the first Belgorod residents who decided to move to a safer place. More than 100 people were placed in our temporary accommodation centers,” Andrei Chesnokov, head of the Stary Oskol district, about 115 kilometers from Belgorod, wrote in Telegram post.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP
This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
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