Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the disputed Kuril Islands Aug. 13 was aimed at reinforcing Moscow’s control over what is a crucial military gateway to the Pacific as it seeks leverage for its war in Ukraine. Besides Moscow, Pyongyang and Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo have crucial interests in the area. All but Beijing have naval bases in the Sea of Japan.
Putin’s trip ratcheted up tensions with Tokyo in a more than 80-year dispute over the islands, which Moscow seized from the defeated Japanese rulers at the end of World War II. The trip and Tokyo’s response also reflect the deepening threat of new wars today.
The trip was the Russian president’s first to the Kurils in his 26-year rule. It comes amid stepped-up naval exercises by Russia’s Pacific Fleet in the area.
“Accompanied by the governor of the Sakhalin region east of Siberia, Valery Limarenko,” wrote the New York Sun Aug. 13, “Mr. Putin made the islands a symbol of Russia’s refusal to compromise on its claims to Ukraine, at the opposite end of the Russian land mass.”
In video coverage widely released by the Kremlin, governor Limarenko insisted Russians are 100% in support of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, “even in the most remote areas.”
“These are our people,” Putin enthused. “The genetic code of the conqueror.”
Putin visited Iturup, within eyesight of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido and the largest island in the southern Kurils. While there he toured a fish processing plant, a hospital and a school named after Eduard Norpolov, a Russian lieutenant killed by Ukrainian forces in 2023 during Moscow’s attacks near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Capitalist rulers try to use Ainu people
The Kurils, an archipelago of 56 islands, extends for 750 miles from the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia to the northeastern corner of Hokkaido. Historically the islands were the sparsely populated home of the Ainu people, of little concern to the rulers in either the Japanese monarchy or czarist Russia. In 1855 the two governments signed the Treaty of Shimoda, which gave control of the four southernmost islands to Japan and the rest to Russia. Twenty years later another treaty shifted ownership of the Kurils to Japan in exchange for the czar getting Sakhalin Island, north of Vladivostok, Moscow’s largest Pacific Coast port.
The monarchy in Japan moved to transform the country into a modern military dictatorship at the end of the 19th century, determined to expand its influence and power. This was strengthened by its victory in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. Their spoils included control of Korea, Manchuria, and half of Sakhalin Island. The Japanese rulers had emerged as an imperialist threat, forming an alliance with London in preparation for the coming first imperialist world war.
After the war, Washington looked to become master of the Pacific, pressing London to break its ties with Japan, leaving Tokyo to search for new allies and ending up with Hitler.
In August 1945 the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and seized the islands. Shortly after Washington dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese emperor announced his country’s unconditional surrender, ending the war in the Pacific. Over the ensuing months Soviet authorities forced Japanese residents out of the Kurils, as well as the remaining Ainu people. They took the Ainu into Russia, replacing them in the Kurils with a few thousand transplanted Russians. But Moscow refused to recognize the Ainu as a people. They were excluded from the list of minorities and forced to assimilate or leave.
The current dispute centers on the South Kuril Islands, which include Iturup. The Japanese rulers claim these are its “Northern Territories.” Some 20,000 Russian citizens live there, farming and fishing, while Moscow refuses Japanese requests to visit.
In 2018 Putin announced Moscow now recognizes the Ainu as an indigenous Russian people, raising concerns among Ainu and others on Hokkaido, as well as with the rulers in Tokyo. At the same time, Beijing, which had long backed Japan’s claim on the Kurils, flipped its stance to support for Moscow’s control.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called Putin’s appearance in Iturup “absolutely unacceptable.” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, responded, saying the islands “were, are, and will remain Russian land.” He added, “Anyone who fails to understand this will face the monstrous consequences of their delusion.”