TOKYO – Japan is imposing sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday, terming Moscow’s moves an unacceptable violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and international law.

Western nations on Tuesday imposed new sanctions on Russian banks and elites after Moscow ordered troops into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.

Japan‘s sanctions include prohibiting the issuance of Russian bonds in Japan and freezing the assets of certain Russian individuals as well as restricting travel to Japan, Kishida said.

“Russia‘s actions very clearly damage Ukraine‘s sovereignty and go against international law. We once again criticise these moves and strongly urge Russia to return to diplomatic discussions,” he said.

“The situation remains quite tense and we will continue to monitor it closely.”

Details of the sanctions will be worked out and announced over the coming days, he added.

Japan has sufficient reserves of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) so that there will not be a significant impact on energy supplies in the short term, Kishida said.

Should oil prices rise further, he said he would consider all possible measures to limit the impact on companies and households.

Kishida said Japan would remain in close contact with other G7 nations and the international community.

“Should the situation worsen, we’ll move quickly to take further action,” he added.

Japanese markets were closed on Wednesday for a national holiday.

Japan‘s toughening stance contrasts with the softer diplomatic approach to Moscow taken by Japanese governments in the past, attempts to secure the return of islands occupied by Russian forces at the end of World War Two.

Japan‘s relations with Moscow have also been shaped by its reliance on Russia for energy needs. In 2021, Russia provided more than 12% of Japan‘s thermal coal, and almost a tenth of its LNG. – Reuters

SEOUL – South Korea’s prime minister on Wednesday called on people not to panic about a major increase in coronavirus infections as new daily cases surged past 170,000 for the first time.

Serious cases and deaths are at manageable levels despite record cases caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told a pandemic response meeting.

“Although our awareness and implementation of anti-COVID rules should not be loosened, there is no reason at all to fear or panic about the numbers of new cases as in the past,” he said, according to a transcript.

South Korea reported 171,452 new coronavirus cases for Tuesday, another daily record and a sharp increase from 99,573 a day before, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Wednesday.

Deaths have slowly ticked up, reaching a near-record high 99 on Tuesday, but South Korean authorities say real-world data shows people infected with the Omicron coronavirus variant are nearly 75% less likely to develop serious illness or die than those who contract the Delta variant.

A study by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) of some 67,200 infections confirmed since December showed the Omicron variant’s severity and death rates averaged 0.38% and 0.18%, respectively, compared with 1.4% and 0.7% for the Delta cases.

Around 56% of 1,073 people who died over a five week period were either unvaccinated or had received only one dose, the study showed, with people aged 60 or older accounting for 94% of deaths, officials said on Monday.

More than 86% of South Korea’s 52 million population have been double vaccinated and nearly 60% have received a booster shot.

South Korea has approved Pfizer’s PFE.N COVID-19 vaccine for use with children aged 5-11, the country’s food and drug ministry said on Wednesday. Read full story

Children should get one-third of the regular dose, administered twice with a three week interval, the ministry said in a statement. Children with significantly declined immunity can get a booster four weeks later.

Kim said social distancing rules will be relaxed after the current wave peaks, which some experts estimate may come in mid-March.

“Omicron’s spread is still racing to its peak, but once it is assured that severe cases and deaths can be stably managed, we will reform the broad framework of our anti-virus quarantine policy including social distancing,” Kim said.

Current rules include mask mandates for public places, vaccine passes for certain locations and events, a six-person limit on private gatherings, a 10 p.m. curfew for eateries and a seven-day quarantine for international arrivals.

South Korea has reported a total of 2.3 million cases since the pandemic began, with 7,607 deaths. – Reuters

MOSCOW/HAVANA – Russia has agreed to postpone some debt payments owed to it by communist-run Cuba until 2027, its lower house of parliament said on Tuesday, just days after the two countries announced they would deepen ties amid the spiraling Ukraine crisis.

The loans, worth $2.3 billion and provided to Cuba by Russia between 2006 and 2019, helped underwrite investments in power generation, metals and transportation infrastructure, according to a statement from the lower house, or Duma.

On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers ratified an agreement, originally signed with Cuban counterparts in Havana in 2021, that amended the loan terms, the statement said.

Cuba last week expressed support for Russia in its showdown with Western powers over Ukraine following a visit from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, and accused long-time rival the United States and its allies of targeting Moscow with what it called a “propaganda war” and sanctions. Read full story

Russia‘s decision to soften the loan terms comes as Cuba wrestles with a dire social and economic crisis that has led to severe shortages in food and medicine, and it follows protests last year believed to be the largest since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

Since the revolution, the two countries have had a long history of economic and military collaboration, though in recent decades those ties have faded.

Russia has, however, continued to deliver humanitarian aid and provide loans to the island.

Over the last decade, Cuba has also restructured debt with China, Germany and Mexico, as well as with Japanese commercial debt holders.

In October, Cuba reached a deal with the Paris Club of creditor nations to postpone an annual debt payment due in November until later this year. Read full story

Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin is expected to visit Cuba and Nicaragua on Feb. 23 and 24. – Reuters

MOSCOW/DONETSK/WASHINGTON – Western nations on Tuesday punished Russia with new sanctions for ordering troops into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine and threatened to go further if Moscow launched an all-out invasion of its neighbor.

The United States, the European Union, Canada and Britain announced plans to target banks and elites while Germany halted a major gas pipeline project from Russia, which they say has amassed more than 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders. Moscow has denied planning an invasion.

One of the worst security crises in Europe in decades is unfolding as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered soldiers into Donetsk and Luhansk to “keep the peace.” Washington has dismissed that as “nonsense”.

Satellite imagery over the past 24 hours shows several new troop and equipment deployments in western Russia and more than 100 vehicles at a small airfield in southern Belarus, which borders Ukraine, according to U.S. firm Maxar.

Weeks of intense diplomacy have so far failed and on Tuesday both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian cancelled separate meetings scheduled with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

“To put it simply Russia just announced that it is carving out a big chunk of Ukraine,” Biden said on Tuesday.

“This is the beginning of a Russian invasion.”

Plans announced by Biden to bolster Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania include sending 800 infantry soldiers and up to eight F-35 fighter jets to locations along NATO’s eastern flank, a U.S. official said, but are a redistribution, not additions.

Putin did not watch Biden’s speech and Russia will first look at what the United States has outlined before responding, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, cited by Russian news agencies.

Early on Wednesday, Putin said he was always open to finding diplomatic solutions but that “the interests of Russia and the security of our citizens are unconditional for us.”

Moscow is calling for security guarantees, including a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO, while the U.S. and its allies offer Putin confidence-building and arms control steps to defuse the stand-off.

A meeting between Biden and Putin, brokered by France, “certainly is not in the plans” at this point in time, the White House said on Tuesday.

MORE SANCTIONS TO COME?

U.S. sanctions are being applied to VEB bank and Russia’s military bank, Promsvyazbank, which does defense deals, Biden said. Starting on Tuesday, sanctions will begin against Russian elites and their family members.

Tass news agency cited Promsvyazbank as saying the sanctions would not have a significant effect since it had taken precautionary measures ahead of time. It did not give details.

Washington also said that it restricted dealings in the secondary market with Russia’s sovereign debt for bonds issued after March 1.

Canada also announced similar steps and will impose sanctions on members of the Russian parliament who voted for the decision to recognise the two separatist areas.

But many Western nations held off the strictest sanctions as they try to dissuade a larger Russian assault. Russia’s Sberbank and VTB would face sanctions if Moscow proceeds with an invasion, said a senior U.S. official, warning of a hit to the wider economy.

“We are fully prepared with a very large number of countries across the world to implement … export control measures.”

The European Union and Britain chiefly targeted Russian banks and their ability to operate internationally with the impact likely to be minimal. Read full story

Lavrov earlier brushed off the threat of sanctions.

“Our European, American, British colleagues will not stop and will not calm down until they have exhausted all their possibilities for the so-called punishment of Russia,” he said.

MARKETS WORRY, SEPARATISTS CELEBRATE

The prospect of a disruption to energy supplies and fears of war – stoked by reports of shelling in some areas and movements of unmarked tanks overnight in the city of Donetsk – rattled markets and sent oil prices to their highest level since 2014.

Germany put the brakes on the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Britain also hit Russian banks with sanctions. The Russian foreign ministry criticized the new measures as “illegitimate”.

Germany is Russia’s biggest customer for natural gas, and the decision by Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the pipeline – built but awaiting approval – was widely seen as one of the strongest measures Europe could take.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hailed the move.

“This is a morally, politically and practically correct step in the current circumstances,” he said. “True leadership means tough decisions in difficult times. Germany’s move proves just that.”

The Kremlin said it hoped the delay was temporary. Putin said Russia “aims to continue uninterrupted supplies” of energy to the world.

Following Russia’s recognition of the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, some residents in Donetsk city celebrated, with cars flying Russian flags and sounding their horns.

But several blasts could be heard at midnight in the centre of the separatist-held city, a Reuters witness said.

The Russian-backed regions broke away from Ukrainian government control in 2014 and proclaimed themselves independent “people’s republics” after a pro-Moscow Ukrainian president was ousted in Kyiv.

“I know that the blood I spilled with my comrades and our labors and efforts and the losses of civilians were not in vain all this time,” Dmitry, a former member of a pro-Russian militia, said in Donetsk on Tuesday. — Reuters