The State Duma of Russia will rename September 3 Victory over Japan Day

The State Duma of Russia will rename September 3 Victory over Japan Day

Deputies of the State Duma of Russia adopted in the first reading the bill on renaming September 3 from the Day of the end of the Second World War to the Day of Victory over militaristic Japan and the end of the Second World War.

The explanatory note to the draft law states that this decision was taken in response to Japan’s “unfriendly” policy towards Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. Tokyo imposed severe sanctions and blocked yen accounts of the Bank of Russia.

At the same time, a proposal to rename the Day of Military Glory was submitted to the State Duma back in 2020. Then the Russian government gave a negative response to the draft law: “Enshrining in the name of the commemorative date the fact of the victory over militarist Japan will emphasize the bilateral nature of the Soviet-Japanese war and identify the role of the Victory of the Soviet people in the end of the Second World War with the act of surrender of Japan, signed on September 2, 1945 on board the American battleship “Missouri”. The drafters of the bill do not take into account that the specified act is the property of many states, and the commemorative dates and days of military glory of Russia established by the legislation, reflecting the historical realities of the Second World War, do not highlight the military victories of the USSR over individual former enemy states, to prevent the perception of the Soviet people’s role in the end of the Second World War from diminishing,” the Cabinet of Ministers said in a statement.

In June 2022, the State Duma voted against the adoption of a bill by deputies from the CPRF. A few days after the vote, a similar bill was introduced by a group of deputies headed by Andrey Kartapolov, a member of the Russian Federation.

“The wording of the victory over militarist Japan should be fixed at the level of the federal law, which reflects the principle of historical justice,” said the explanatory note to the document. This time, the government did not have any questions.

  • Japan became one of the first countries to resolutely protest against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country introduced sanctions not only against the first persons of Russia, but also banned the export of vaccines, medical equipment and robots. The import of radioactive materials, equipment for nuclear facilities, oil and natural gas exploration is also prohibited. In addition, the Japanese authorities expanded the list of personal sanctions against Russian citizens, companies and banks.
  • At the same time, Japan provides billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, and in March 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kysida visited Kyiv, where he discussed the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.



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