Tokyo, March 17 (Jiji Press)–Historians in Japan have called on the Japanese, Chinese and Indian governments to broker a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.

Noting that Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, holds an important religious meaning for Russians, Haruki Wada, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, and 13 others said in an urgent statement that Russia’s war against the eastern Europe nation “must be stopped right now.”

After compiling the statement Tuesday through online discussions, the scholars presented it to Japan’s Foreign Ministry the following day and plan to do so to the Russian embassy in Tokyo shortly.

In the statement, they stressed that the Russian aggression in Ukraine “will cause irreparable damage to the future” of both countries and will “decisively deepen the European and world crises.”

Then they insisted that Japan, as a country that fought four major wars against Russia in the past 130 years, take the initiative and encourage China and India, which have so far maintained stable ties with Russia, to join it in going between Moscow and Kyiv.

Although a border conflict and other issues exist between China and India, Wada, who studies modern Russian and Korean histories, told Jiji Press that if the two Asian mammoths work together to tackle the Russia-Ukraine crisis, “the joint effort could make their bilateral relations good in the future.”

Shiro Kato, professor emeritus at Aichi Prefectural University, who was also among the 14 scholars, pointed out that Japan can capitalize on its experience of fights against and negotiations with Russia in brokering the cease-fire.