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Japan was the first country to break its silence after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Tokyo said of the Kuril Islands that it was “completely unacceptable that the Northern Territories have yet to be returned since the Soviet Union’s illegal occupation of them 77 years ago”. That annexation saw the expulsion of Japanese people from the southern islands, and since then, the countries have failed to reach a compromise. Talks broke down when Putin showed he was not willing to share lands but only to gain new ones. Then China started drawing maps marking part of Siberia and...

Japan reacted angrily on Tuesday after Russia withdrew from peace treaty talks with Tokyo and froze joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril Islands because of sanctions imposed by the Kishida administration over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow and Tokyo have still not formally ended World War II hostilities because of the stand-off over islands just off Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories. The islands were seized by the Soviet Union at the end of second world war. Japan has imposed sanctions on 76 individuals, seven banks...

Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, said that southern Kuril Islands are a sovereign part of his country, and not part of Russia, which has controlled the group of islands since 1945. Speaking in the Diet earlier this week, Kishida told lawmakers the Kuril Islands are “original territories of Japan”. The islands have been a point of controversy between Japan and the Russia for decades. Moscow took control of the islands after World War II in 1945. In recent years, the Japanese government had refrained from referring to the islands as its “original territories” in order to avoid upsetting the Russian...

The activity at the small island volcano itself seems to have decreased a lot or even ceased - there are no more new ash alerts issued that mention new emissions at the volcano itself, and no significant heat signals can be found. However, VAAC Anchorage continues to alert about the possible remaining ash clouds from the main phase of the eruption during 21-22 June. On the other hand, most of this ash must by now have been dispersed sufficiently to fall below direct detection by satellite-based sensors. What is still clearly being detected is the significant SO2 gas plume: in...

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said on Tuesday that Tokyo had asked Russia to reduce its military activity on a disputed island chain in the Pacific after Moscow beefed up its forces there in response to what it sees as a potential threat. The territorial dispute over the islands, known as the Kuril Islands in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, is so acrimonious that Moscow and Tokyo have not yet signed a peace treaty to mark the end of World War II. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved the deployment of Russian warplanes on one of the disputed islands...

Russia to deploy cruise missiles on Kuril Islands: Interfax Wednesday 02nd March, 06:04 AM JST MOSCOW —Russia will deploy antiship cruise missiles and an advanced air defense system on the Kuril Islands, including the four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido claimed by Japan, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian defense official as saying Tuesday. The official of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces said Russia will set up Yakhont antiship missiles and the Tor-M2 missile shield, according to the news agency. The cruise missiles could be deployed in Etorofu and Kunashiri, two of the four disputed islands which have...

Russian aircraft are approaching, and entering, Japanese air space more frequently. Such intrusions are up 80 percent this year. So far this year, Japanese fighters have scrambled 186 times to deal with these alerts. That's a 30 percent increase from last year. In contrast, fighters were dispatched only 24 times to deal with Chinese aircraft and four times for Taiwanese aircraft. Nearly all of these intrusions were by maritime reconnaissance or electronic eavesdropping aircraft. These intrusions have been increasing over the last three years. Early on, the Japanese launched many aircraft for each intrusion. For example, in 2008, a Russian...

According to the Joint Staff for Japan's Self-Defense Forces, its air force responded to 149 alerts against Russian aircraft in the April-September period, up 80% on the year. Japanese jets responded to a total of 186 alerts, up 30% from the year-earlier 146, with Russian aircraft drawing about 80% of such responses, known as scrambling in military terms. Chinese aircraft sent Japanese fighters scrambling 24 times, with Taiwanese planes drawing four responses. Russian planes have been spied over the disputed islands off Hokkaido, but have not been confirmed to have violated Japanese airspace elsewhere. Russia conducted a major military exercise...

As Americans turn their attention inward, China and Russia are beginning to make geopolitical moves that evoke nothing so much as the environment of the 1930s. I have written elsewhere about China's dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands and Beijing's resort to a direct confrontation over them in September. Russia added to Japan's troubles last week, when Dmitry Medvedev planned to make an unprecedented visit to the Kuril Islands in the north, which have been disputed by Japan and Russia since the end of World War II. Medvedev's trip was curtailed by bad weather on this occasion (a verifiable excuse, incidentally)....

One of the problems of living at the gateway to Asia is that anyone who lives in Asia, well, has to go through the gate. Such is Japan’s problem lately, with China and now Russia holding exercises and transiting ships near its borders. Anyone who lives in a large apartment building directly above the garage can probably sympathize. Russia conducted a military drill last weekend on Etorofu, one of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido claimed by Japan, despite a request by Tokyo not to do so. A press officer in the military’s Far East district said Saturday-Sunday drill was “the...

Fox News Alert: Pacific side residents told to get to higher ground.

The Source for Navy News Story Number: NNS021016-01 Release Date: 10/17/2002 By Lt. Leslie Hull-Ryde, Commander, Logistics Group, Western Pacific Public Affairs SINGAPORE (NNS) -- For years, the United States has worked closely with Vietnam to account for all armed forces personnel missing in action as a result of the Vietnam War. Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, Detachment 2, based in Hanoi, leads the search efforts for thousands of MIAs. The Naval Regional Contracting Center did its part recently to help bring closure to many American families still grieving over their losses. Representatives from NRCC exercised a contract's option period,...