Russia slams Japan for ‘violently distorting’ UNESCO dossier on soldiers held in second world war

Russia on Thursday slammed Japanese documents recently listed by a UN body on Japanese soldiers held in the Soviet Union after the second world war, saying the descriptions contradict a bilateral document on the issue.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Japanese soldiers held in the Soviet Union were not internees unfairly captured after the war’s end but rather prisoners of war lawfully detained.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation added earlier this month dozens of files to its Memory of the World register, including one from Japan titled “Return to Maizuru Port – Documents Related to the Internment and Repatriation Experiences of Japanese [1945-1956].”

While Japan deems that the war concluded August 15, 1945, the date it surrendered to the Allies, Russia puts the date at September 2, when Japan signed the official surrender instrument. Russia’s position is that the “prisoners of war” were transferred to the Soviet Union from what was then Manchuria in China by the latter date.

The ministry said that because of these differences in view, a bilateral document signed by then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev during his 1991 trip to Japan did not use the word “internment”.

The Japanese UNESCO file thus “violently distorted” what the 1991 document says, the ministry said.