Washington Reopens the Kuril Islands Dispute — Moscow Says the Matter is Closed

The United States has once again backed Japan’s claims over Russia’s southern Kuril Islands, after President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Iturup, the largest island in the chain.

US Ambassador to Japan George Glass declared on X that Washington remains

“unwavering”

in recognizing what it describes as Japanese sovereignty over the islands Tokyo calls the “Northern Territories.”

He also accused Russia of undermining

“peace and stability”

in the Indo-Pacific.

Moscow, however, has a fundamentally different position.

The Russian Embassy in Tokyo stressed that Putin’s visit to the Kuril Islands is an internal sovereign matter of the Russian Federation and is not subject to negotiations with foreign governments.

The historical dispute dates back to the end of World War II, when the southern Kuril Islands came under Soviet control. Russia maintains that its sovereignty over the territory is firmly established and not open to renegotiation.

But the timing matters.

Washington’s renewed endorsement of Tokyo’s territorial claims comes as the US is simultaneously strengthening its military and strategic partnership with Japan.

The Kurils are therefore more than a historical dispute.

They sit at a critical junction between the North Pacific and the Sea of Okhotsk, adjacent to Russia’s Far Eastern military and naval infrastructure.

For Washington, supporting Japan’s claim reinforces pressure on Moscow in the Pacific.

For Russia, any attempt to challenge its sovereignty over the islands is viewed as part of a broader strategy of strategic containment.

The deeper question is whether Washington is simply supporting an old Japanese territorial claim — or deliberately keeping another pressure point against Russia alive in the Indo-Pacific.

The Kuril dispute may be decades old.

But in the emerging confrontation between Russia, the United States and its Pacific allies, old territorial disputes can become new strategic fault lines.