Japan Weighs New Russia Sanctions After Putin’s First Visit to Disputed Kuril Islands

Japan is weighing additional sanctions on Russia after the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, traveled to the disputed Kuril Islands on August 13, his first visit as the leader.

A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official told reporters that Tokyo is "considering what step to take going forward," Kyodo News reported on August 14.

Putin traveled to Iturup, known in Japan as Etorofu and the largest of the four Russian-held islands Tokyo claims, days after overseeing Russian Pacific Fleet exercises in the Far East. According to the Russian government, he visited a fish-processing plant, a hospital and a school and met with local residents.

Tokyo summoned Russia's ambassador, Nikolay Nozdrev, and lodged a formal protest, calling the visit "totally unacceptable." Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi declared the islands "an inherent part of Japanese territory both historically and under international law."

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed that the Kremlin is likely using the visit to deter Japan from adopting a more assertive defense posture. The move also aims to discourage EU seizures of Russian shadow-fleet vessels, tying the island dispute to the pressure campaign around Moscow's war against Ukraine.

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Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty to end World War II, a stalemate entirely rooted in the Kurils. Soviet forces seized the four southernmost islands—Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai islets—in the war's final weeks, expelling the Japanese residents. Japan calls them the Northern Territories and has never dropped the claim.

The visit lands as Tokyo's posture toward Moscow hardens. Japan's 2026 Defense White Paper, published earlier this month, named Russia among the country's principal threats. Putin criticized the paper on Wednesday, asserting the islands became Russian territory "as a result of World War II" and accusing Japan of imposing "unprovoked sanctions" over the war in Ukraine.

The trip closes even the pretense of a diplomatic thaw. Under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi's political mentor, Japan met Putin 27 times in pursuit of a peace treaty. In 2018, the two sides agreed to accelerate talks on a 1956 declaration that envisaged returning Shikotan and the Habomai islets after a treaty was signed. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine froze those negotiations in 2022.

The visit is not without precedent. In 2010, then-President Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian head of state to visit the islands, traveling to Kunashir, a move that drew a formal protest without severing bilateral contact. Putin's trip arrives as a harder marker, set against Russia's sustained war footing rather than a peacetime dispute.

Ukraine has staked out its own position in the row, aligning with Tokyo against Moscow. Kyiv's parliament recognized the islands as Japanese territory in 2022, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree affirming Japan's sovereignty over its Northern Territories.

The protest has drawn a combative response from Moscow, where Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev warned that Tokyo's insistence on its historical claim would change nothing and threatened grave consequences should Japan continue to press it. He dismissed Takaichi's position outright, asserting the islands had always been and would remain Russian territory.

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