TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) - Tokyo is set to welcome its first Ukrainian refugees, and will provide apartments for them as the city seeks to demonstrate its opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Governor Yuriko Koike said.

"We are receiving people from Ukraine today," Koike said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday (March 18), adding that cities around the world must cooperate to solve global issues that threaten people's lives.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose government has been quick to show solidarity with the United States and Europe by imposing a raft of sanctions on Russia over its assault on Ukraine, has set up a task force to coordinate offers from local governments to host refugees.

The move is highly unusual for Japan, which accepted only 91 of almost 4,000 people who applied for refugee status in 2020. A survey by public broadcaster NHK published on Monday found 85 per cent supported the idea of accepting people displaced from Ukraine.

"We have to decide we are firmly against the outrageous activity led by President Putin," added Ms Koike, a former defence minister and the first woman to run Japan's biggest city.

The government is referring to the Ukrainian arrivals as "evacuees", rather than refugees. They will initially be put up in hotels and then moved to apartments belonging to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Ms Koike said.

She did not specify the number to be accepted, but the Nikkei newspaper reported her as saying last week that an initial 100 apartments would be provided, rising to a maximum of 700.

Ms Koike also suspended Tokyo's sister city ties with Moscow, the paper said.

More than three million people have escaped Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on Feb 24, according to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. They have largely sought refuge in Poland, which has the European Union's longest land border with Ukraine.