Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first visit to the Kuril Islands on August 12. He became the second Russian leader to visit the islands, after President Dmitry Medvedev’s landmark trip in 2010. More recently, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited the islands in 2021. 

Putin’s recent visit prompted a protest from Japan, with Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae calling the visit an offense to the sentiments of the Japanese people and unacceptable. 

The islands have been the subject of an ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, both historically and under international law, for over 80 years. Russia calls the islands the Kuril Islands, and Japan calls them the Northern Territories; the volcanic islands lie at the heart of a territorial feud that has prevented the two countries from formally ending World War II, despite signing a joint declaration for restoring diplomatic relations in 1956. 

Putin’s recent visit has made it even harder to restore relations between the countries. 

There are 56 islands in the 1,300-kilometer (810-mile) archipelago that stretches from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to Hokkaido, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. Japan claims four of the islands. These include Iturup (Etorofu in Japanese), Kunashir (Kunashiri), Shikotan, and Habomai, the southernmost islands and closest to Japan, just off the coast of Hokkaido. While Russia administers the islands as part of the Sakhalin region, Japan considers the four they claim as part of Hokkaido prefecture and argues that they are “illegally occupied” by Russia.

In 1855, in the first treaty between tsarist Russia and Japan, the frontier between the two countries was drawn just north of the four islands closest to Japan. Twenty years later, a new treaty handed the entire chain to Japan, in exchange for Russia gaining full control of the island of Sakhalin. Japan seized back control of the southern half of Sakhalin during its crushing victory in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

In August 1945, as the Soviet Union entered the war with Japan just after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the Kuril Islands emerged as a flashpoint. Soviet troops completed their takeover of the islands after Japan surrendered. The Soviet capture of the islands has prevented Moscow and Tokyo from signing a formal treaty to end the war, despite repeated attempts over the past 80 years to reach agreement. 

In 1956, both Moscow and Tokyo signed a joint declaration that ended their state of war and restored diplomatic relations – though it was not a formal treaty ending the war. As part of the declaration, the Soviet side agreed to transfer Shikotan and the Habomai Islands to Japan. Negotiations continued after the Cold War, producing results such as the 1993 Tokyo Declaration and 2001 Irkutsk Statement, the latter of which reaffirmed the 1956 declaration as the baseline legal foundation for peace talks.

Under Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, talks intensified in 2018, including the drafting of a peace treaty based on the 1956 declaration. However, the process collapsed with the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, when Russia suspended peace-treaty negotiations due to Tokyo’s sanctions against Moscow.

The Kuril Islands are far more than a territorial dispute between Russia and Japan; they are a lesser-known strategic fault line in the evolving Indo-Pacific order. Home to around 20,000 people across the chain, the islands are economically and strategically valuable because they are rich in fish stocks and contain deposits of minerals and rare metals, including rhenium, which is used in the production of supersonic aircraft. 

For Russia, however, the islands’ greatest value is military. Bases and missile systems on the Kurils help secure Moscow’s Pacific Fleet and reinforce the Sea of Okhotsk as a nuclear bastion. Control of the islands gives Russia year-round access to the Pacific Ocean for its Pacific Fleet, based in Vladivostok, since the strait between Kunashir and Iturup does not freeze in winter. They are also a launchpad for maritime outreach through the Northern Sea Route.

While Russian and Chinese warships recently conducted Joint Sea 2026, an annual bilateral naval exercise, through waters around the Kuril chain, Russian naval forces have also conducted exercises in the Far East. 

By tightening its grip on the islands, Moscow is not merely defending territory but also challenging the existing regional balance. This complicates the strategic calculations of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific alliance, including Japan’s Indo-Pacific outlook, adding another layer of complexity to the evolving region.

For Japan, the dispute is increasingly connected to the wider security challenge posed by a possible Taiwan contingency. Russian military activity in the region could complicate Japan’s ability to focus exclusively on threats closer to Taiwan and the East China Sea. 

The implications extend well beyond Russia and Japan. Joint Chinese-Russian naval activity around the Kurils signal growing strategic convergence between Moscow and Beijing. China’s silence and neutral stance on Japan’s territorial claim further strengthens Russia’s position while placing additional pressure on Tokyo. 

The timing of Putin’s visit to Iturup Island was notable. It came two days before Japan marked 81 years since its surrender ended ​World War II. It also came a day after North Korea fired a missile into the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and just days before major South Korea-U.S. military exercises, Ulchi Freedom Shield, were scheduled to begin. The timing suggests a coordinated display of military and geopolitical pressure around Japan, highlighting Japan’s increasingly difficult security environment.

The Kuril Islands dispute is not just a territorial dispute between Russia and Japan but reflects the larger complexity of geopolitical dynamics in the Indo-Pacific Region.

The possibility of peace between Japan and Russia seems bleak at this juncture, after the closing of another window of opportunity for the two countries to engage in a beneficial tradeoff between Russian energy and Japanese technology and investments. The dispute may remain a long-term strategic flashpoint, limiting economic cooperation while intensifying wider geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific. This may eventually lead Japan to harden its security posture and deepen its alignment with the U.S. and other Indo-Pacific partners, further reducing prospects for any Japan-Russia rapprochement.