Ukraine's ambassador to Japan has stressed that his country requires security guarantees as a prerequisite for any ceasefire in its conflict with Russia, amid concerns over US President Donald Trump's controversial and seemingly conciliatory approach towards Moscow in ongoing peace negotiations.

In an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News this week, Sergiy Korsunsky, the outgoing ambassador scheduled to leave his post in mid-April after five years in Tokyo, expressed hope for continued US support while voicing gratitude for Japan's assistance to Ukraine.

Reaching an agreement with Russia that "guarantees Ukraine's security and enables the punishment of war criminals" is key, Korsunsky said to Kyodo just days short of the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of his homeland.

To many in Japan he is preaching to the proverbial choir, but with a government in Tokyo in need of liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from wherever it can secure the fuel, and with one eye on possible US tariffs hurting Japan’s export-focussed economy, times are changing.

Tokyo is gradually losing interest in supporting Ukraine even with long-term political foe Russia the eventual beneficiary.

That there is little love lost for Russia in Japan in unquestionable with the two countries still technically at war due to political disagreements over the Kuril Islands to the Northeast of Hokkaido; land lost to the-then Soviet Union in another, albeit much smaller and relatively bloodless, Russian land grab of the sparsely populated islands in the closing days of WWII.

Moscow still administers four contested islands 80 years later despite decades of negotiations and repeated Japanese efforts to allow an ever-dwindling number of exiled former residents the chance to one day return home. Ambassador Korsunsky used this issue to play his ‘trump’ card during the interview by adding that Japan’s claim to the Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, has Ukraine's "full support" before adding that it "makes no sense" to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kuril spat aside, it has also not gone unnoticed in Moscow that Japan, like its Group of Seven brethren including the United States under former President Joe Biden, have provided significant support to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion. Japan has also imposed a number of economic sanctions on Russian entities and individuals.

However with President Donald Trump back in the White House, the Japanese government has quietly gone into self-preservation mode.

This was most evident earlier in February when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba flew to Washington to cozy-up to the new US president in what most saw as an attempt to have Trump go lightly in terms of potential tariff imposition on Japan.

A joint Trump–Ishiba press conference in the wake of Ishiba’s visit to the Oval Office also saw Japan signalling its support for the development of the $44bn Alaska LNG project with President Trump revealing a “joint venture” between the two countries according to High North News. 

How and to what extent future LNG supplies from the US will affect Tokyo’s existing deals for the super-chilled fuel with Moscow remains to be seen; Japan at present receives around 9% of its total annual LNG imports from Russia.

However, even with the Alaska deal with Trump in the bag, the fact that the 78-year-old president is building on ties with President Putin first established in 2017 leaves Japan between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

It is a situation Ukraine’s Ambassador Korsunsky has no doubt seen himself by pitching to keep the war on the front pages of the Japanese media saying the US surely "understands the nature of this war" and that Washington is well aware of "who began this war and has been killing many people" before, according to Kyodo, saying that he thinks it unlikely that US assistance to Ukraine will be discontinued.

Should that happen though, and should Trump cut off aid to Kyiv regardless of Korsunsky’s take, Japan will more than likely follow-suit.

Playing the diplomat to the end though, Korsunsky went on to state his appreciation to "all Japanese people who have supported" Ukraine; a standard modus operandi in flattery across Asia when coming cap-in-hand for continued recognition of a lost cause.

But flattery works in East Asia and in part is behind Tokyo having welcomed more than 2,700 Ukrainian refugees since the 2022 invasion.

Around 2,000 remain in Japan today according to Kyodo, but just how long they will continue to be welcome should Tokyo follow a possible shunning of Kyiv by Washington is anyone’s guess.