A social media video about the defeat of fascism featured a picture of Japan’s wartime Emperor Hirohito alongside Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

A Ukrainian tweet said, “Our sincere apologies to Japan for making this mistake.” “We had no intention of offend the friendly people of Japan.” The post was updated with an edited video without Hirohito’s image.

Our sincere apologies to @japan for this mistake. We had no intention to offend the friendly people of Japan.
🇺🇦🇯🇵

We have corrected it and posted the new video here: https://www.bolnews.com/international/2022/04/ukraine-apologises-to-japan-for-comparing-to-hitler/amp/

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— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) April 24, 2022

The tweet went viral over the weekend, prompting a formal Japanese protest.

Also, in a country that has backed President Volodymyr Zelensky since the Russian invasion, it threatened to alienate conservatives.

While Japan has traditionally been a pacifist, it has broken with tradition by sending non-lethal military equipment to Ukraine.

It has also opened its doors to a few hundred war refugees.

In a tweet Sunday, Masahisa Sato, head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s foreign policy panel, asked the Foreign Ministry to protest the Ukrainian government.

The “problematic” video was removed, he later added.

Others said it would have been more appropriate to use a picture of Hideki Tojo, who was Japan’s prime minister for most of WWII and was later hanged as a convicted war criminal.

The Japanese public has backed tough sanctions against the Kremlin.

A Nikkei newspaper poll conducted April 22-24 found that 42% of respondents thought Japan’s sanctions against Russia should be tougher, while 44% thought they were appropriate.

More than 62% of respondents approved of the government’s overall war handling.

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