TOKYO—Russia held live missile drills near islands claimed by Japan, further straining relations with Tokyo after a visit to the disputed archipelago by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The report didn’t say when the exercise took place. The southern Kuril Islands are known in Japanese as the Northern Territories and were seized by Russia from Japan in the final days of World War II. They have been a sore point in bilateral relations ever since. He added Russia is also eager to show China it is still a potent military force after losses in Ukraine. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi described the visit as unacceptable and officials lodged protests with Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded by summoning the Japanese ambassador in Moscow to convey Russia’s territorial claims over the four disputed islands.
The Russian Pacific Fleet said a submarine, warship and coastal defense system fired missiles at mock enemy vessels in the waters off the southern Kuril Islands in Russia’s far east, according to Russian state news agency Interfax. “Russia’s military buildup on the Northern Territories runs counter to Japan’s position” on the islands, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said late Thursday in response to news of the exercise. Security analysts said similar missile drills have been held before and are designed to rehearse Russia’s defense of the Sea of Okhotsk, an area vital for Russia’s fleet of ballistic missile submarines. “The hypothetical enemy is therefore not Japan, but the United States,” said James Brown, an expert on Russia-Japan relations at Temple University in Tokyo. “Japan’s right-wing forces, led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, are attempting to revive the spirit of militarism, fabricating narratives to whitewash Japanese colonizers and cast doubt on the postwar international order,” China’s envoy to Russia, Hanhui Zhang, said Thursday in a statement to Russian state media agency TASS.
