"Overall, we are seeing the trend staying at a high level," Japan's military chief of staff Yoshihide Yoshida said at a press conference on Thursday.

In the financial year to March 31, Japan scrambled fighter jets 704 times to intercept foreign aircraft.

Of those, 464 -- or 66 percent -- were for aircraft or drones that are known or believed to be from China, Japan's Joint Staff said, down slightly from 479 times in 2023-24.

Of the incoming Chinese aircraft, 30 were drones -- up from nine seen in the previous year.

Russian aircraft accounted for nearly all the rest, or 237 times, a jump from 174 times the previous year.

Russian and Chinese warships held joint drills in the Sea of Japan in September, part of a naval exercise that Russian President Vladimir Putin said was the largest of its kind in three decades.

The majority of the Chinese flights in 2024-25 were in waters around Taiwan and the neighbouring Japanese region of Okinawa, Japan's Joint Staff said.

Beijing has ramped up pressure on self-ruled Taiwan in recent years and held military drills that analysts see as preludes to a possible future takeover of the self-ruled island.

In August, a Chinese military plane for the first time violated Japan's airspace in areas off Kyushu island.

Then in September, a Japanese jet for the first time fired a signal flare to fend off a Russian military plane flying inside territorial airspace off Hokkaido island in the north.

Japan also scrambled jets in September when Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time since 2019.

Japan has provided Kyiv with financial and material support while sanctioning Russian individuals and organisations after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Tokyo's defence minister said that the US military would deploy long-range surveillance drones in Okinawa to boost intelligence gathering capabilities.