Japan on Monday acknowledged the need to take more effective measures to counter foreign intelligence activity. A day earlier, a New York Times report had said Russia had turned Japan into a “den of spies” and an important source of weapons components. The news agency AFP reported this.
The New York Times investigative report, published on Sunday, said that by exploiting Japan’s “weak counter-espionage laws,” Moscow was using the country as an important hub to gather intelligence and to acquire dual-use technology needed for the war in Ukraine.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Minoru Kihara, said on Monday: “In a rapidly changing security environment, we realize that the need to counter more effectively foreign intelligence activity, such as the collection of important information that threatens Japan’s national security, is growing.” Declining to comment directly on the US newspaper’s report, Kihara told journalists: “We will have to deal with this matter more strictly.”
Citing estimates by the Ukrainian government, the report said 90 percent of the missiles and drones used by Russia contained Japanese components. It said Russia’s operations in Japan were being run by a Russian intelligence officer, Maksim Vladimirovich Filchenkov, who was working under cover at the office of the Russian airline Aeroflot in Tokyo. Because of restrictions on direct exports to Russia, the report said, various procurement networks were using intermediary firms and third countries such as Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka to send these components to Russia. Kihara also said Japan’s parliament had approved a law this year, clearing the way for the formation of a new national agency to coordinate the country’s scattered intelligence operations.
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