On August 13, Putin emerged from his bunker and took a trip. The Russian president didn’t step out into the real world to do anything that might genuinely help the Russian people, who are increasingly suffering because Ukraine has brought the war Putin started back into Russia. No, Putin doesn’t care about such trivial concerns. Instead, the Russian leader decided that August 13 would be the perfect time for a little excursion to what Russia calls Iturup Island and what Japan calls Etorofu.
That island is the largest of the islands that make up the Southern Kurils, and all of these islands have been occupied by Russia since the end of World War II. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be a problem here. Putin just visited Russian territory, right? Well, not exactly.
Russia may occupy the Kuril Islands, but Japan has challenged that occupation for decades. This wasn’t a simple visit for Putin. It was a deliberate decision to provoke Japan. The intent was to remind Japan that Russia not only occupies the Kuril Islands but intends to maintain control over them for a long time.
With this one visit, Putin reignited tensions that had been dormant and set off a chain of events that put Japan on high alert, may have boosted China’s presence in the Pacific region, and could ultimately impact Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan is not happy about what Putin just did, though it didn’t respond with open fury. That’s not Japan’s style. Instead, Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanai Takaichi, described Putin’s actions as “utterly unacceptable.
” That was followed by the summoning of the Russian ambassador in Tokyo for what The Guardian describes as a severe reprimand. Russia responded by claiming Japan is making groundless claims about its territory in the Kuril Islands. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov issued some summons of his own, asking the Japanese ambassador in Russia to visit him. Interestingly, that ambassador didn’t respond immediately.
The Observer notes that time was allocated, likely to discuss the approach with officials in Tokyo before the ambassador went to meet Lavrov for a discussion that lasted 20 minutes. All of this tells us that the situation regarding the Southern Kuril Islands is far more complex than Putin wants to show. To understand why, we have to dig deeper into what the Kuril Islands actually are. In total, 56 islands make up the Kuril archipelago, with the southernmost one being just 4 kilometers from Hokkaido.
Japan has pledged around $20 billion by the start of 2026. Ukraine’s next goal is to reach the stage of building 20 million drones annually, and reports indicate plans are underway to enable this doubling of production. “We are making 10 million drones a year, 10, and it will reach 20.
” In a report released on August 20, it was revealed that around 20 Russian missiles were heading toward Poland, but Ukrainian air defenses shot them down, meaning the incursion could have been much worse.
