The Japanese men joining Ukraine’s fight

Motomura, who plans to join the Georgian Legion to fight for Ukraine, holding a military jacket at his store in Maebashi, Gunma prefecture. — AFP

YUYA Motomura, a mahjong parlour manager in Japan, had always wanted a way to prove himself to a society he felt looked down on him. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.

The 45-year-old is one of a handful of Japanese men who have joined Ukrainians battling the Russian invasion, defying their government’s warnings and bucking a decades-long national principle of pacifism.