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Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, made a trip to the disputed Kuril Islands for the first time in history on Thursday. During his visit, he toured a military facility, a fish processing plant, a hospital, and a school on Iturup — the largest of the four southernmost islands at the center of an 80-year territorial dispute with Japan. The trip came on the 81st anniversary of the Soviet seizure of the islands in the final days of World War II.
The response from Japan was swift and sharp. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi posted on X that Putin’s trip was “absolutely unacceptable” and that the islands — which Japan calls the Northern Territories — are “inherently Japanese territory.” She noted that Tokyo had “repeatedly requested the Russian side to ensure that the president does not visit the Northern Territories.” Senior Japanese officials summoned the Russian ambassador and filed a formal protest, with Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi saying Japan “strongly protests this visit.”
Moscow brushed off the criticism. Kremlin spokespersons said Japan’s reaction reflected an “anti-Russia policy” and reiterated that the islands are Russian territory. Putin’s visit was described as routine presidential engagement with Russia’s Far East — a characterization Tokyo rejected.
The timing was pointed. Putin’s trip came just days after Japan published its 2026 defense white paper — the first in Japanese post-war history to explicitly identify China and Russia as acute security threats and to outline expanded defense cooperation with the United States. Observers noted the Kremlin’s choice of timing appeared deliberately calibrated to underscore Moscow’s position in response to Tokyo’s increasingly assertive defense posture.
The four southernmost Kuril Islands were seized by the Soviet Union in August 1945. Japan renounced all claim to the Kuril chain in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco but never recognized Soviet — or Russian — sovereignty over those four islands. A 1956 joint declaration ended the formal state of war, but no peace treaty has ever been signed. The dispute has made Japan and Russia the only two major World War II belligerents that remain without a formal postwar settlement.
Iturup hosts one of Russia’s most strategically significant military bases in the Pacific, with a substantial air defense and ground forces presence roughly 300 kilometers northeast of Japan’s Hokkaido island. Putin’s personal visit to the base sent a clear signal: from Moscow’s perspective, the territorial question is settled — and Russia has no intention of revisiting it.
