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Putin’s Kuril visit sparks anger
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the far-eastern Kuril Islands for the first time on Thursday, drawing anger from Japan, which has long claimed ownership of four of the islands including the one reportedly visited by Putin.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the far-eastern Kuril Islands for the first time”
During the trip, Putin visited a fish-processing plant on Iturup—known as Iturup in Russian and Etorofu in Japanese—where he was given caviar, Russian media reported.
The unresolved dispute over the islands is described as one of the key reasons why Moscow and Tokyo never signed a formal World War II peace treaty, and Russian-Japanese relations have since suffered another major blow after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in 2022.
Japan’s foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Tokyo “strongly protests this visit,” and the dispute is framed as a territorial standoff over the “Northern Territories” that Japan says are part of Japan’s territory both historically and under international law.
Tokyo protests; Kremlin shows footage
Japan protested against Putin’s visit, with Reuters reporting that Japan’s foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said, “The northern territories, including Etorofu, are Japan's inherent territory both historically and based on international law,” and that “Japan strongly protests this visit.”
Russian state media and television footage showed Putin in a dark suit standing in a room looking at two large tuna and halibut on a table as officials spoke about fishing and the migratory behaviour of fish.
Reuters also reported that Putin told a group of Iturup locals, “What lovely weather you have there, just like a resort!” while a woman joked back, “And we thought you arranged this!”
The visit is described as following major naval drills and a missile firing by ally North Korea, and Reuters placed the trip a day after that firing toward waters off the east of the Korean peninsula.
Aftermath and regional risk
The Kuril archipelago is described as running in an arc from Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula down to Japan’s main northern island of Hokkaido, with the islands now Russian-occupied following the Soviet Union’s takeover in 1945.
“Moscow deported their Japanese population of about 17,000 people”
dw reported that at that time Moscow deported their Japanese population of about 17,000 people, and that the islands are now inhabited by some 20,000 Russian citizens, while the unresolved dispute continued to block a formal peace treaty.
In the days around Putin’s trip, Reuters said the visit followed Wednesday’s firing of a ballistic missile by ally North Korea, and it came days ahead of major joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington long denounced by Pyongyang.
The same Reuters reporting framed the visit as part of a wider pattern of heightened regional tensions, with Putin’s Kuril stop occurring after he visited the nearby Russian island of Sakhalin where Russia’s navy was conducting drills.