Putin’s Kuril Islands visit draws sharp protest from Japan

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the disputed Kuril Islands has triggered a fresh diplomatic confrontation with Japan, which has denounced the trip as “absolutely unacceptable” and reaffirmed its claim to four southern islands.

Putin travelled on Thursday (August 13) to Iturup, the southernmost of the disputed islands, where he met the regional governor and visited a fish-processing plant, a hospital and a school. The trip marked his first visit to the disputed Kuril Islands.

Before heading to Iturup, Putin inspected a Russian naval exercise off Sakhalin and held discussions on security along Russia’s eastern frontier.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the visit hurt the feelings of the Japanese people and contradicted Tokyo’s longstanding position on the Northern Territories, as Japan calls the four islands. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi summoned the Russian ambassador to formally protest the visit, insisting that the islands are an integral part of Japan under historical and international legal grounds.

Putin, however, rejected Japan’s position, saying Russia poses no threat to Japan and arguing that it is Tokyo that continues to lay claim to Russian territory.

The dispute centres on four islands—Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and the Habomai islets—which have remained a source of tension between Moscow and Tokyo since the end of World War II. The Soviet Union seized the islands in 1945, forcing around 17,000 Japanese residents to leave. The strategically important islands are rich in fishing resources and are now home to roughly 20,000 Russian residents.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated further since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Japan joined Western sanctions against Moscow. The latest dispute over Putin’s visit threatens to add another strain to already-fragile Russia-Japan ties.