Putin Tours Kuril Island, Japan Calls Visit 'Unacceptable'
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- Putin visited the island of Iturup in the Kuril chain — his first-ever visit to any of the disputed islands — touring a school, hospital and industrial facilities two days before the 81st anniversary of Japan's WWII surrender.
- Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi declared the visit "absolutely unacceptable" on social media, calling the islands "inherently Japanese territory," while Russia's Foreign Ministry countered that they are an "integral part" of Russia.
- Russia's 2020 constitutional amendment formally bans ceding any territory to a foreign power, and bilateral relations deteriorated further after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
- The Kuril Islands were seized by Soviet troops two weeks after Japan's August 15, 1945 surrender, forcing all 17,300 Japanese residents to leave over the following year; the two nations have never signed a formal peace treaty.
- Japan has limited diplomatic leverage, according to Waseda politics professor Toshimitsu Shigemura, because Ukraine-related sanctions are already in place and Tokyo relies on Russian energy — a dependency Shigemura noted has grown more important "because of the situation with Iran."
- Experts James Brown (Temple University) and Shigemura agreed the visit punishes Japan for its Ukraine support and NATO-aligned ties while rallying domestic patriotic sentiment, and both judged that no future Russian leader — even one after Putin — would return the islands.
Why it matters: Tokyo has already summoned the Russian ambassador and filed a formal protest but has little room to escalate: its existing Ukraine sanctions are already near-maxed, and its reliance on Russian energy has actually grown because of Iran-related supply disruptions. Putin, coordinating with China and North Korea, is exploiting that weakness at a moment when Takaichi's domestic poll numbers are softening, effectively locking the 1945 territorial dispute in place on Russian terms.
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