Asahi highlighted remarks made to the press on Tuesday by Keizai Doyukai Chairman Sakurada on the massive Japanese investment in the Sakhalin 1 and 2 offshore oil/LNG drilling initiatives in the Russian Far East. On two U.S. and UK energy giants’ decisions to pull out of the projects on account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the top business executive expressed skepticism about Japanese trading firms’ continued participation. “The impact [of withdrawal] would not be small,” he was quoted as saying. “But I don’t think such a scenario would be catastrophic for the Japanese economy.”