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Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the disputed Kuril Islands for the first time, travelling to Iturup, one of the chain's southernmost islands.
He visited a fish processing plant, a hospital and a school, spoke to residents and met Sakhalin regional governor Valery Limarenko.
Japan protested immediately: Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the Northern Territories 'an inherent part of Japan's territory' and the visit 'absolutely unacceptable'.
The four southernmost islands were taken by the Soviet Union in 1945, and the dispute has kept Russia and Japan from signing a World War II peace treaty for eight decades.
The archipelago runs about 1,300 km from Kamchatka to Hokkaido, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean.
The Kurils form a volcanic arc along the Pacific Ring of Fire, created where the Pacific Plate subducts beneath the Okhotsk Plate - which is why the chain is seismically violent and studded with active volcanoes. The arc encloses the Sea of Okhotsk to the west, separating it from the open Pacific to the east. At the northern end lies the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia); at the southern end, across the Nemuro Strait, lies Hokkaido (Japan). The four islands Japan claims are the southernmost: Iturup (Etorofu), Kunashir (Kunashiri), Shikotan, and the Habomai islets. Control of the chain gives Russia protected access from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Pacific - strategically important for its Pacific Fleet and its ballistic-missile submarines, which is the underlying reason the islands are not simply traded away.
The Soviet Union occupies the Kuril Islands in the final days of the Second World War; Japanese residents are later expelled
San Francisco Peace Treaty - Japan renounces claim to the Kurils, but the treaty does not name the four southern islands or specify a recipient, and the USSR does not sign it
Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration ends the state of war and restores diplomatic relations; the USSR offers to return Shikotan and the Habomais on conclusion of a peace treaty, which is never signed
Putin becomes the first Russian president to visit the islands, going to Iturup; Japan lodges a protest
The Kurils sit on the subduction boundary where the Pacific Plate dives beneath the Okhotsk Plate, producing a chain of active volcanoes and frequent large earthquakes. The same arc system continues north into Kamchatka and south into the Japanese islands.
Japan's other major territorial dispute, this one with China, in the East China Sea. Candidates are frequently asked to distinguish the two: Kurils = with Russia, to Japan's north; Senkaku = with China, to Japan's south-west. Japan also disputes Takeshima/Dokdo with South Korea.
The Sea of Okhotsk functions as a protected bastion for Russia's Pacific Fleet. Holding the Kuril arc controls the straits between that sea and the open Pacific, which is the strategic logic behind Russia's refusal to cede the southern islands.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations: bilateral disputes; GS Paper 1 > World Geography: physiography and plate tectonics
General Awareness > World Geography and Current Affairs
Japan's name for the four southernmost Kuril islands it claims - Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai islets.
The treaty that formally ended the Allied war with Japan. Japan renounced claims to the Kurils, but the text neither defined the term nor named a beneficiary, and the USSR refused to sign - the ambiguity the dispute rests on.
Ended the state of war and restored diplomatic ties; the USSR offered Shikotan and the Habomais once a peace treaty was concluded. No such treaty has ever been signed.
A marginal sea of the north-west Pacific, enclosed by the Kuril arc, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and Hokkaido.
The Russian federal subject that administers both Sakhalin island and the Kuril Islands.