Vladimir Putin visits disputed Kuril island, sparking Japanese protest

Vladimir Putin has visited one of a group of islands off the coast of Japan that Tokyo claims as its own territory, drawing an immediate protest from the Japanese government.

This is the first such trip by a Russian president in 16 years.

Mr Putin travelled to Etorofu, known in Russia as Iturup, at the southern end of the Kuril chain off the eastern coast of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, the state news agency TASS said.

"We strongly protest the visit," the Japanese foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, said in a statement on X on Thursday.

"The Northern Territories, including Etorofu island, are Japan's inherent territories, both historically and under international law."

The four islands at the centre of the dispute, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, were seized by the Soviet Union in the closing days of the Second World War. Moscow declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and six days before the war ended, and the roughly 17,000 Japanese residents were deported after the occupation.

Because the dispute was never settled, the two countries have never signed a peace treaty formally ending the war between them, the last such gap left over from 1945.

The visit follows Wednesday's firing of a ballistic missile by ally North Korea towards waters off the east of the Korean peninsula, days ahead of major joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington long denounced by Pyongyang.

On Wednesday, Mr Putin observed a military drill of Russia's Pacific Fleet in the far eastern Sakhalin Region on board a missile cruiser called “Varyag”, TASS said.

Mr Putin toured the Yasny fish-processing plant on the island.

Footage broadcast by the Vesti television channel showed him in a dark suit examining a large tuna and a halibut laid out on a table while two officials talked about fishing and the migration of fish stocks. He stopped to taste local fish roe.

"What lovely weather you have there, just like a resort!" he told a group of islanders.

A woman who appeared to be in her 30s replied: "And we thought you arranged this!"

His visit is the first by a Russian president to the islands since Dmitry Medvedev went to Kunashiri in November 2010, and the first by Mr Putin himself in more than a quarter of a century in power.

About 20,000 Russians now live on the islands, which have gold and silver deposits and some of the richest fishing grounds in the north Pacific. Air and naval bases were built there during the Cold War, aimed at the United States and at Japan, and Russia has kept a military presence ever since.

The visit came a day after North Korea, a Russian ally, launched a ballistic missile towards waters off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, shortly before joint military exercises by South Korea and the United States that Pyongyang has long condemned.