Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi demanded that Russia dismantle the recently opened Victory in the East memorial in Khabarovsk, dedicated to the defeat of militaristic Japan. Tokyo was outraged by the image of a Soviet soldier smashing a border post with an imperial chrysanthemum. The Russian authorities have stated that they will not remove or change the monument. State Duma deputy Oleg Matveychev explained to the Newspaper.Ru”, why he considers Japan’s demand ridiculous.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi demanded that the Victory in the East memorial, dedicated to the Soviet Union’s victory over Japan, be dismantled in Khabarovsk on September 4.

In a post on the social network X, she called the image of the destruction of a border post with the imperial seal of Japan by a Soviet soldier “completely unacceptable.”

“This is an issue that affects the national feelings of the Japanese people. The Japanese government has strongly demanded that the Russian side stop installing the monument and dismantle it,” Takaichi said.

A similar statement was made by Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, who also said that the appearance of such a monument was “unacceptable and extremely regrettable,” and stressed that Tokyo would continue to demand its dismantling.

“The chrysanthemum will stay”

At the same time, Japanese diplomats opposed the composition even before Takaichi’s official statement. A day before the opening of the monument, the Consulate General of Japan in Khabarovsk appealed to the Russian side to remove the chrysanthemum. The diplomats pointed out that she is the national flower of Japan, the symbol of the emperor and the imperial family, and her image is used, in particular, on Japanese passports.

The Japanese side asked the authorities to “prevent unjustified incitement of confrontation between Japan and Russia” and to abandon the installation of a sign with a chrysanthemum or to dismantle it if it has already been installed.

Nikolay Ovsienko, Deputy head of the Russian President’s Office for State Policy in the Humanitarian Sphere and Deputy Chairman of the RVIO, replied that they would not change the composition.

“This is an exact replica of the border post that Imperial Japan erected on Sakhalin Island. When we finally liberated Sakhalin and returned it to Russia, a Russian soldier, a Soviet soldier smashed this symbol of militaristic Japan,” MK quoted him as saying.

According to Ovsienko, the request of the Japanese side is “extremely incorrect,” since the chrysanthemum in this case symbolizes not only the imperial house, but also militaristic Japan during the Second World War.

“We absolutely consciously used the symbol in this memorial. We believe that this is correct, it is historically true,” the official stressed.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA Novosti that Tokyo treats its history with disdain.

“If Tokyo treats Japanese history with disdain, then this disease should not spread to others,” she said.

The diplomat added that “all that remains is to demand that the wind not blow and the sun not shine.” According to Zakharova, the Russian land is protected by ancestors, history is based on facts, and memory is imprinted in a monument.

In turn, in the commentary to “Gazeta.State Duma deputy Oleg Matveychev called the demand “ridiculous” in the context of how the Second World War ended for Japan, to which this monument is dedicated.

“The fact that Japan stands for some of its symbols is ridiculous to hear, because the Japanese themselves, having signed an unconditional surrender, parted with their sovereignty, and by the way, they have not gained this sovereignty so far. And when the surrender is unconditional, it means that sovereignty, all symbols, former territorial claims, and in general everything is in the hands of the winner, and the defeated completely surrenders to the will of the winner,” the deputy explained.

Matveychev stressed that Russia has the right to erect any monuments and will not betray the memory of its ancestors by dismantling them.

What kind of monument is this?

The Victory in the East Memorial Complex was opened in Khabarovsk on September 4. It is located on the highest point of the city’s embankment next to the Youth Leisure Center and is Russia’s largest monument dedicated to the victory over militaristic Japan and the end of World War II.

The central part of the composition is a 15-meter bronze figure of a Soviet soldier who, with the butt of a rifle, smashes a Japanese border post depicting the Imperial seal of Japan in the form of a chrysanthemum with 16 petals.

The prototype was the border sign that stood on Sakhalin after the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905, when the southern part of the island was ceded to Japan. The creators of the monument note that the pillar depicted on it is an exact copy of the Japanese border sign preserved in the museum of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

The pylons of the memorial complex also indicate the Far Eastern and Trans-Baikal fronts, the Pacific Fleet and the Amur Flotilla, which participated in combat operations against Japanese troops in 1945.

The memorial was created jointly by the Russian Military Historical Society and the government of the Khabarovsk Territory on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The project was chosen from eight options at a creative competition, the authors of the final composition were sculptor Denis Stritovich, architect Vadim Frolov and artist Ilya Hrabry.