Japan Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's first-ever visit to the disputed Kuril Islands, saying they were "inherently Japanese territory."
In a post on X, Takaichi said Thursday that Tokyo had "repeatedly requested the Russian side to ensure that the president does not visit the Northern Territories." The Northern Territories refer to the Kuril Islands.
She added that Putin's visit was "absolutely unacceptable."
The Kuril Islands sit between the southern tip of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and the north-eastern corner of Japan's Hokkaido. The sparsely populated and volcanic archipelago separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The four southernmost islands of the chain were annexed by the Soviet Union when it launched an invasion of Japanese territory toward the end of World War II.
