
50-year-old Russian woman found dead in Osaka apartment
A 50-year-old Russian woman has been found dead in her apartment in Naniwa Ward, Osaka, with marks on her face that look like she had been repeatedly punched, police said.
According to police, Elena Ito was found lying face up on her bed at around 10 p.m. Friday by her estranged husband, Kyodo News reported. Her husband called 110.
Police said Ito was declared dead at the scene. There was blood on Ito's face and multiple bruises and she had also vomited blood.
There were no signs that the apartment had been ransacked.
Ito lived alone. Her estranged husband, who is a Russian national, told police he had not been able to contact her for several days and went to her apartment to see if she was alright.
The apartment building is about 350 meters west of Osaka Metro Shitennoji-mae Yuhigaoka Station.
© Japan Today

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Yomiuri Shimbun
4 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Russia Launches the Biggest Aerial Attack since the Start of the War, Ukraine Says
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched its biggest aerial attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Sunday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war. Russia fired a total of 537 aerial weapons at Ukraine, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, Ukraine's air force said. Of these, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed. The onslaught was 'the most massive airstrike' on the country since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, taking into account both drones and various types of missiles, Yuriy Ihnat, head of communications for Ukraine's air force, told The Associated Press. The attack targeted several regions, including western Ukraine, far from the front line. Poland and allied countries scrambled aircraft to ensure the safety of Polish airspace, the country's air force said. Three people were killed in each of the drone strikes in the Kherson, Kharkiv and the Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to the three governors. Another person was killed by an airstrike in Kostyantynivka, local officials said. In addition to aerial attacks, a man died when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson, and the body of a 70-year-old woman was found under the rubble of a nine-story building hit by Russian shelling in the Zaporizhzhia region. In the far-western Lviv region, a large fire broke out at an industrial facility in the city of Drohobych following a drone attack that also cut electricity to parts of the city. Ukraine's air force said one of its F-16 warplanes supplied by its Western partners crashed after sustaining damage while shooting down air targets. The pilot died. Russia has recently been improving its drone technology as well as its tactics, striking Ukraine with increasing success. Russian troops reportedly advance in Donetsk Russia's Defense Ministry said it had shot down three Ukrainian drones overnight. Two people were wounded in another Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Bryansk in western Russia, regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said Sunday morning, adding that seven more Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the region. Meanwhile, Russia claimed Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Novoukrainka in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region. Russian forces have been slowly grinding forward at some points on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, though their incremental gains have been costly in terms of troop casualties and damaged armor. In other developments, Russia's foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, said he had spoken on the phone with his U.S. counterpart, CIA Director John Ratcliffe. 'I had a phone call with my American counterpart and we reserved for each other the possibility to call at any time and discuss issues of interest to us,' Naryshkin said in remarks to state TV reporter Pavel Zarubin, who posted them on his Telegram channel on Sunday. Sunday's attacks follow Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments two days ago that Moscow is ready for a fresh round of direct peace talks in Istanbul. Two recent rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul were brief and yielded no progress on reaching a settlement. Zelenskyy withdraws Ukraine from an anti-land mine pact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree to withdraw Ukraine from the Ottawa Convention banning antipersonnel land mines, a Ukrainian lawmaker said Sunday. The move follows similar recent steps by the Baltic States and Poland. The 1997 treaty prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel land mines in an effort to protect civilians from explosives that can maim or kill long after fighting ends. 'This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded,' said Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence. He noted that Russia is not a party to the convention 'and is massively using mines against our military and civilians.'


Kyodo News
6 hours ago
- Kyodo News
FEATURE: Osaka prosecutor who accused boss of rape faces backlash
By Aya Tamura, KYODO NEWS - 9 minutes ago - 09:05 | All, Japan, Feature In Japan, prosecutors are powerful public officials who are meant to protect the public from rapists and other criminals. But what if the chief prosecutor is an accused rapist himself? That's the explosive charge leveled by Hikari, a female prosecutor with the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office who says she was raped by her boss in 2018. Her pain did not end after the alleged attack. She says it got worse due to a campaign by former chief prosecutor Kentaro Kitagawa and others to silence her, and a colleague who slandered her by spreading rumors claiming she had romantic feelings for Kitagawa. Hikari's quest for justice is the latest MeToo case in Japan involving women who refused to be silenced after being assaulted by establishment figures. They include filmmaker Shiori Ito and former Ground Self-Defense Force member Rina Gonoi. Kitagawa, 65, has been indicted and initially admitted the rape charge, but later recanted, saying the sexual encounter was consensual. On May 21, Hikari -- not her real name -- held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo in which she disclosed a handwritten letter she had received from Kitagawa, asking her to keep quiet about what happened. According to the indictment, in September 2018, Hikari drank at a social gathering for work and became intoxicated before trying to catch a taxi. Kitagawa half-forced his way into the vehicle and took Hikari to his official residence where he raped her. A groggy Hikari regained consciousness and pleaded for Kitagawa to stop, but he continued the sexual assault, telling her, "You are my woman now." In an interview with Kyodo News in early May, Hikari said she believes she was "bullied by the prosecutors' organization" into initially not speaking publicly about the incident. She wishes to remain anonymous as she intends to continue her work. Hikari developed post-traumatic stress disorder and was unable to continue work as a prosecutor, a job she loved. In Kitagawa's six-page letter written to Hikari, dated Oct. 28, 2019, he apologizes for the "irreparable damage" his actions caused and for the fact that his apology following the incident was insufficient. But after begging Hikari's forgiveness several times, Kitagawa asks her to keep the rape secret. "If this incident becomes public, I will not be able to live on, and I have decided that I will have no choice but to commit suicide," the letter reads. The scandal would harm Kitagawa and the Public Prosecutors Office, leading to resignations by other high-ranking officials, it adds. At the press conference, Hikari recalled that she was too scared to speak out about what happened. She finally decided she could not live without holding Kitagawa responsible and filed a formal report in February 2024 demanding strict punishment. She said she returned 10 million yen ($70,000) in compensation that Kitagawa had paid her and her husband. "My dignity as a human being and as a prosecutor was trampled on, my body and soul harmonious life with my family, my precious job, the time I had spent working tainted and my future was stolen from me," she said. Kitagawa was arrested in June 2024 on a charge of quasi-forcible sexual intercourse and indicted on the same charge in July. At the first hearing of his trial in October, Kitagawa admitted to the indictment, saying he had "no intention of fighting the case," and apologized for "causing serious and severe harm to the victim." However, the situation took a dramatic turn in December when his new defense council made it clear that Kitagawa would be denying the charge. He suddenly claimed there was consent and no intention to commit a crime. The trial has not been held since he changed his plea to not guilty. Hikari's trauma continues to this day. After returning to work briefly in September 2024, a female deputy prosecutor in the same department, on the same floor, began circulating rumors about the incident and her involvement with Kitagawa. Hikari refers to this as a "secondary rape." According to Hikari, the deputy prosecutor leaked her personal information and details of the sexual assault, and said her victim's report and PTSD claims were fraudulent. Hikari was again forced to take sick leave. Hikari filed claims of defamation and harassment among other charges against the deputy prosecutor, but the woman was not charged and only received a warning. Hikari and her lawyer are preparing to file a review with the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, claiming the decision not to prosecute the deputy prosecutor is unjust. She is also calling for the establishment of an independent committee to review the responses to her case. "Harassment is rampant in the Public Prosecutors Office," she said. "I believe that both the Kitagawa case and the further accusations by the deputy public prosecutor are the result of this kind of prosecutorial terrain." In an email to Hikari's lawyer, a high-ranking official of the Osaka High Public Prosecutors Office said the office stands by its decision not to pursue a case against the deputy prosecutor based on the law and evidence. The official also argues further that publicly speaking about the incident "undermines the credibility of the office." "This is not an attempt to keep her quiet or a threat, but an obvious request, so we ask that she refrain from saying she has been told to shut up or threatened," the official said. Related coverage: Ex-chief Osaka public prosecutor pleads guilty to rape of colleague Ex-chief public prosecutor arrested for raping colleague in Osaka


Japan Today
9 hours ago
- Japan Today
Ukraine F-16 pilot killed in large-scale Russian attack; Zelenskyy calls for U.S. help
Explosion lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 29, 2025. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich By Pavel Polityuk A Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilot died in a crash while repelling a Russian air attack that involved hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, authorities said on Sunday, as Moscow intensifies night-time air barrages in the fourth year of war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the pilot, Maksym Ustymenko, and bestowed upon him posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine, the country's highest decoration. He also called for more support from Washington and Western allies to bolster Ukraine's air defenses after the attack, which damaged homes and infrastructure across the country and injured at least 12 people, according to local authorities. In Kyiv, families huddled in metro stations for shelter after air raid sirens rung out. Machine-gun fire and explosions were heard across the capital and in the western city of Lviv, where such attacks are less common. The governor of the Lviv region, bordering Poland, said the raid targeted critical infrastructure. Ukraine has now lost three F-16s since it began operating the U.S.-made jets last year. Kyiv has not revealed the size of its F-16 fleet, but they have become a central and heavily used part of Ukraine's defenses. The pilot flew the damaged jet away from a settlement but had no time to eject before it crashed, the Ukrainian Air Force said. "The pilot used all of his onboard weapons and shot down seven air targets. While shooting down the last one, his aircraft was damaged and began to lose altitude," the Air Force said on Telegram. Ukrainian military expert Roman Svitan, speaking earlier this month, said the F-16 was not ideally suited to all tasks in the war, particularly repelling drones which swarm Ukrainian cities, as it is better used against higher-speed targets. Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said Ustymenko had been flying missions since the time of a campaign that began in 2014 against Russian-financed separatists who had seized parts of eastern Ukraine. "He mastered four types of aircraft and had important results to his name in defending Ukraine," he said. "It is painful to lose such people." The Ukrainian military said in total Russia launched 477 drones and 60 missiles of various types to Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian forces destroyed 211 of the drones and 38 missiles, it said, while 225 more drones were either lost due to electronic warfare or were decoys that carried no explosives. Writing earlier on X, Zelenskyy said: "Moscow will not stop as long as it has the capability to launch massive strikes." He said Russia had launched around 114 missiles, 1,270 drones, and 1,100 glide bombs just in the past week. Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency said one person was killed by a Ukrainian drone in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Luhansk region. Both Ukraine and Russia say they do not attack civilian targets. POLITICAL WILL Ukraine says recent attacks highlight the need for further support from Washington, which under President Donald Trump has not committed to new military aid for Ukraine. Trump said he was considering a Ukrainian request for more Patriot missile batteries after he met Zelenskyy at a NATO summit last Wednesday. "This war must be brought to an end - pressure on the aggressor is needed, and so is protection," Zelenskyy said in his X post. "Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defense - the thing that best protects lives." He said Ukraine was ready to buy the American air defense systems and it counts on "leadership, political will, and the support of the United States, Europe, and all our partners." Russia has launched large-scale strikes on Ukrainian cities every few days in recent weeks, causing widespread damage, killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds more. During the latest barrage, explosions were heard in Kyiv, Lviv, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and the Ivano-Frankivsk regions, witnesses and regional governors said. The Ukrainian military said air strikes were recorded in six locations. Eleven people, including two children, were injured in the central Cherkasy region, the regional governor said on Telegram. Three multi-storey buildings and a college were damaged. One woman was injured in western Ivano-Frankivsk region. Rescuers evacuated residents from apartment blocks in Cherkasy that had charred walls and broken windows. © Thomson Reuters 2025.