On the same day, Putin insisted the Northern Territories are confirmed Russian by international documents, Zelensky said he submitted a war-ending plan to the US, and Israel's embassy in Tokyo publicly attacked Japanese outlets by name. Japanese netizens met all three with resignation, fatigue, and distrust of Japan's diplomacy and media.
In his July 25 address, President Zelenskyy warned that Russia is preparing to receive an additional 30,000 North Korean soldiers, with arrangements under way in Voronezh Oblast since June and further ballistic missile launcher transfers also in preparation. Japanese commenters treated the soldiers' survival odds as a matter of arithmetic and focused on what drone tactics and weapons knowledge Pyongyang would retain. Sympathy came at a distance, framed as an accident of where one was born.
Reports that Putin has grown 'weak' under Ukrainian drone strikes — amid fuel shortages and a crippled economy from strikes on refineries — collided with news that foreigners are being lured to Russia's front lines. Some 800 Peruvians, recruited with promises of high-paying 'security guard' and 'cook' jobs at around ¥490,000 a month, were reportedly sent to fight in Ukraine with wages unpaid and no food. Japanese netizens responded with a mix of cold detachment — reaching for their own wartime memories — and humanitarian outrage at a state luring foreigners to be 'meat shields.'