Putin visits disputed Kuril Islands for first time, drawing Japan's protest

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Kuril Islands — disputed territory known in Japan as the Northern Territories — for the first time on Thursday, drawing an immediate protest from Tokyo.

Russia's state-run Tass news agency reported that Putin, who has been touring Siberia and the Far East since Aug. 10, visited Iturup (known in Japan as Etorofu), one of the four disputed islands in the Kuril chain.

He inspected local schools and a hospital and held informal conversations with residents. It was Putin's first visit to the Kuril Islands, which lie just off Japan's Hokkaido.

His predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, became the first Russian leader to visit the islands in 2010 while serving as president and made four trips there through 2019.

On Wednesday, Putin inspected the Varyag — the flagship of Russia's Pacific Fleet and a missile cruiser known as an "aircraft carrier killer" — in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in Russia's Far East, near the Kuril Islands, and received a briefing on military exercises.

Speaking in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Putin dismissed Japan's territorial claims over the Kuril Islands, saying the situation was "a reality that emerged after World War II and is enshrined in international documents." He added that Russia "does not threaten Japan and makes no territorial claims against it."

On Wednesday, Putin also criticized Japan for imposing "one-sided sanctions" against Russia without properly understanding the root causes of the conflict in Ukraine, and referenced Tokyo's defense white paper released earlier this month, which identified Russia as a security threat.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held a press conference in response, saying she "strongly protests" the visit. "The Northern Territories are Japan's inherent territory, both historically and under international law," she said. "Putin's visit to the Kuril Islands has wounded the feelings of the Japanese people and made it harder to restore bilateral relations over the medium and long term."

The Kuril Islands are a chain of 56 islands stretching roughly 1,300 kilometers from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula to Japan's Hokkaido, with a population of only about 20,000. The region is rich in mineral resources, including gold and silver, as well as marine resources. Russia seized the Kuril Islands — including the four disputed islands of Kunashir (Kunashiri in Japanese), Iturup (Etorofu), Habomai and Shikotan — in the final days of World War II in 1945, expelled the Japanese residents and has maintained a military presence there ever since.