Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first-ever visit to the disputed Kuril Islands on Thursday, touring a fish-processing plant on Iturup — the largest of four contested islands — where he sampled fish roe and met local residents. The visit, which the Kremlin documented in a publicly released video, drew an immediate and forceful response from Tokyo. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi declared that the islands "are an inherent part of Japan's territory both historically and under international law," adding that his government "strongly protests this visit."

The Kuril Islands form a volcanic archipelago stretching in a broad arc from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula in the north down to Hokkaido, Japan's main northern island. Four of the southernmost islands — known in Russia as Kunashir, Habomai, Shikotan, and Iturup, and in Japan as the Northern Territories — lie at the heart of one of Asia-Pacific's longest-running territorial disputes. The Soviet Union seized the chain in the final days of World War Two, declaring war on Japan only on August 8, 1945 — after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and just six days before Japan's surrender — and subsequently deported approximately 17,000 Japanese residents. Because no peace treaty was ever signed between Moscow and Tokyo, the dispute has remained unresolved for nearly eight decades. Although Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev floated the idea of returning two of the islands in 1956 when diplomatic relations were re-established, subsequent negotiations have yielded no concrete progress.

Putin's visit came directly after a stop on the nearby Russian island of Sakhalin, where he chaired a meeting described by state media agency RIA Novosti as focused on "ensuring the security of Russia's eastern borders" and observed naval drills. The timing and optics were significant: the islands serve as Russia's primary military air base in the region, and last month Chinese and Russian naval warships conducted a joint patrol through a strait in the archipelago. Putin is not the first Russian leader to make the journey — former president Dmitry Medvedev visited in 2010 and returned several times thereafter as prime minister — but the trip carries added weight given the current geopolitical climate.

Relations between Tokyo and Moscow have deteriorated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even as Russia has deepened its ties with China and North Korea. The Kuril visit is unlikely to ease those tensions. The islands, home to roughly 20,000 Russian citizens, hold considerable strategic and economic value — rich fishing grounds and mineral deposits including gold and silver — making any future negotiated settlement appear increasingly remote.