Putin makes first visit to disputed Kuril Islands as Japan protests

President Vladimir Putin has made his first-ever visit to the Kuril Islands, a volcanic archipelago in Russia's far east that has been a perennial source of friction between Moscow and Tokyo, prompting an immediate and robust protest from Japan, which claims the four southernmost islands as its own Northern Territories. The Kremlin released video footage of the Russian leader on Iturup—known as Etorofu in Japanese—where, according to Russian media reports, he visited a fish-processing plant and was presented with caviar, a move that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi denounced as "absolutely unacceptable" and offensive to the sentiments of the Japanese people, further complicating already strained bilateral relations. Mrs Takaichi, speaking to reporters, asserted that the islands were "an inherent part of Japan's territory, both historically and under international law," and warned that Mr Putin's decision would make it more difficult to restore relations in the medium to long term, while her foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, summoned the Russian ambassador to Japan, Nikolai Nozdrev, to lodge a "strong protest" against what he termed a surprise move.

The visit, which followed Mr Putin's trip to the nearby island of Sakhalin on Wednesday, where he held a meeting "on ensuring the security of Russia's eastern borders" and observed naval drills, comes amid a broader deterioration in Japanese-Russian relations, already aggravated by Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Japan's subsequent imposition of sanctions, as well as the provision of financial and non-lethal aid to Kyiv. Mr Putin, for his part, characterised Japan's sanctions as "unprovoked" during his remarks on Wednesday, and pointedly noted that while Japan had identified Russia as a main source of threats, Russia was not threatening Japan, adding that it was Tokyo that held territorial claims against Moscow, a reference to the long-standing dispute. The geopolitical context has been further complicated by the deepening alignment between Russia and China, whose naval and air forces have conducted joint exercises in areas around Japan, prompting frequent scrambles of Japanese fighter jets, while North Korea, which this month termed Japan's military build-up a "transformation into a war state," has also sent troops and artillery to support Russia's war effort.

The Kuril Islands, which the Soviet Union seized in the final days of the Second World War—declaring war on Japan on 8 August 1945, six days before the conflict's end—have been a source of diplomatic tension for decades, preventing the two countries from concluding a formal peace treaty. The Soviet authorities deported the archipelago's Japanese population of approximately 17,000 people following the occupation, and the islands, which are home to some 20,000 Russian citizens today, have since acquired strategic significance, providing air and sea bases during the Cold War and hosting mineral deposits including gold and silver, as well as rich fishing grounds. In 2010, then-president Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian leader to visit the disputed territory, a precedent he repeated several times as prime minister, but Mr Putin had not previously made the journey until now, a decision that has drawn sharp criticism from Tokyo and risks further inflaming a dispute that shows no sign of resolution.