More than eighty years after the end of the Second World War, there is a wound in history that has never healed: Japan and Russia have never signed a real peace treaty. Blocking diplomacy today is a handful of islands in the North Pacific: the southern part of the Kuril Islands, an archipelago located in Asia that divides the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to the island of Iturup has put the spotlight back on a dispute that has never died down, adding fuel to the fire and crossing what Tokyo considers a real red line.
A bridge of volcanoes between the ice
The scene of the clash is a wild archipelago: a chain of approximately 1,300 kilometers that connects Kamchatka to Japan, dividing the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. It has 56 islands arranged on two parallel ridges, the Large and the Small Chain.
Geologically, the Kurils constitute the emerged top of a volcanic arc born along the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the Pacific plate sinks beneath the Okhotsk microplate. This subduction process has excavated the Kuril Trench, over 10,000 meters deep, and feeds around a hundred volcanic edifices, of which around forty are still active.
It was precisely the effect of the perennial columns of steam that pushed the Russians to name them using the verb kurit’, i.e. “to smoke”. Originally these lands belonged to the Ainu, the indigenous population of the island of Hokkaido: in their language the word kur simply means “man”.
The first frictions between Japan and Russia arose in the nineteenth century, when tsarist Russia began to push south. In 1875, with the Treaty of St. Petersburg, a compromise was reached: the Tsars ceded the entire Kuril archipelago to Japan in exchange for total control of the island of Sakhalin, a strategic outpost transformed by the Russians into a well-known penal colony and fundamental for the projection of their power on the Pacific Ocean.
1905: The humiliation of the Tsar
Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the ambitions of Moscow and Tokyo collided. Japan is experiencing the Meiji Renewal: in a few decades it overthrows the old feudal system of the shoguns and samurai, industrializes and claims a place among the great powers. On the other hand, Tsarist Russia considers East Asia an essential living space and rejects any diplomatic compromise.
So Tokyo decides to strike first. On February 8, 1904, Japanese ships launched a devastating surprise attack on the tsarist fleet in Port Arthur, without any declaration of war (a move that preceded Pearl Harbor by forty years).
The conflict proved to be a disaster for the Russians, who, with the Treaty of Portsmouth of 1905, were forced to withdraw from Manchuria and cede the southern half of Sakhalin island, south of the 50th parallel, to Japan. The Kurils, on the other hand, have already been entirely Japanese since 1875: the war does not affect them. The humiliation remains burning: for the first time in centuries, a European power is forced to give way to an Asian power.
[1945:Stalin’srevengeandthe”InvisibleBattle”
For Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union (heir of Tsarist Russia), the Second World War is the perfect opportunity to wash away the shame of 1905. On 8 August 1945, 24 hours before the second atomic bomb obliterated the city of Nagasaki, the Soviet Union broke the neutrality pact and launched Operation August Storm. The Red Army overwhelms the Japanese defenses: it spreads into Manchuria and, from 11 August, reconquers the southern half of Sakhalin, the Japanese Karafuto lost in 1905.
But there’s more: despite the announcement of Japan’s surrender made by Emperor Hirohito on August 15, the Soviets launch an amphibious operation on the Kurils. Between 18 August and 2 September 1945, a true “invisible battle” was fought. Island by island, the Soviets occupy the entire archipelago, including the four southernmost islands near Hokkaido (Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and the Habomai islets), expelling approximately 17,000 Japanese residents.
The diplomatic short circuit and today’s wall
At the basis of the diplomatic block there are two agreements: that of Yalta (1945), in which the Allies promised the Kurils to Stalin to push him to go to war against Japan, and that of San Francisco (1951), in which Japan renounced its rights to the Kurils, but maintained that the 4 southern islands (Northern Territories) were never geographically part of the ceded archipelago. The USSR, for its part, refused to sign the treaty in controversy with the US military presence in the Pacific.
In 1956 the two nations signed a first joint declaration which formally put an end to the conflict without healing the rift and without concluding a real peace treaty. However, the Cold War, which positioned Japan alongside the United States, prevented a concrete thaw in relations.
After the fall of the USSR, peace seemed imminent, thanks to the continuous diplomatic openings that continued until 2018, with the hypothesis of the sale of two smaller islands to Tokyo. However, in 2020 Russia, due to some internal nationalist pressures, approved a constitutional reform which prohibits the cession of any national territory. Finally, the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022 put the tombstone on diplomacy: Tokyo sided with Western sanctions and Moscow froze all negotiations.
A summary: the main stages of the dispute between Russia and Japan
Let’s briefly summarize the main stages that led to the clash:
- Treaty of Shimoda – 1855
First official border: the 4 southern islands are recognized as Japanese territory. - Treaty of St. Petersburg – 1875
Japan gets all the Kurils; Russia gets the entire island of Sakhalin. - Treaty of Portsmouth – 1905
After victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Tokyo takes the southern half of Sakhalin. - Yalta and Soviet invasion – 1945
The Allies promise the Kurils to the USSR. The Red Army occupies the entire archipelago and expels the Japanese. - Treaty of San Francisco – 1951
Japan renounces the Kurils but claims the 4 southern islands. The USSR does not sign the peace. - Joint Declaration – 1956
The formal state of war ends. Moscow proposes to return 2 islands, but the pact collapses due to Cold War tensions. - Thaw – 1991
Moscow and Tokyo are getting closer. - Russian Constitutional Reform – 2020
Russia constitutionally prohibits the cession of any national territory to foreign powers. - War in Ukraine – 2022
Japan’s sanctions on Russia definitely freeze relations - Militarization – 2023/2026
Russia militarizes the Kuril Islands, transforming them into a defensive bastion
