Vladimir Putin has reignited a World War Two row after he made his first-ever trip to the contested Kuril Islands.
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi denounced the visit as "absolutely unacceptable", telling reporters it "wounds the feelings of the Japanese people" and was "incompatible with Japan's consistent position on the Northern Territories".
Ms Takaichi insisted the island chain, which the Russian President visited today, remained "a unique territory of [Japan] historically and under international law."
Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi summoned Russian ambassador Nikolay Nozdrev to lodge a formal protest, declaring that the disputed territories "are an inherent part of Japan's territory both historically and under international law."
President Putin had travelled to Iturup, referred to as Etorofu in Japan, one of four islands claimed by both nations.
The territorial row stretches back to the final days of World War Two, when the Soviet Union declared war on Japan in August 1945 as Tokyo was on the verge of surrender.
Soviet forces seized the southernmost islands of the volcanic archipelago, which stretches in a wide arc from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula down to Hokkaido.
Moscow subsequently deported roughly 17,000 Japanese inhabitants.
Approximately 20,000 Russian citizens now live on the islands in harsh conditions.
The dispute has prevented the two countries from ever concluding a formal peace treaty, and decades of negotiations have yielded little progress towards resolving the question of sovereignty.
The four contested islands, Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai group, possess valuable mineral resources, including gold and silver, alongside productive fishing waters.
According to Russian state media, President Putin toured a fish-processing plant, a hospital and a school on Iturup, meeting the regional governor and local residents.
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Japanese television broadcast footage of the Russian President sampling caviar at the processing facility, alongside reactions from former Japanese inhabitants who condemned his presence.
The visit followed a stop on Wednesday at the nearby Russian island of Sakhalin, where President Putin observed naval exercises and held discussions on safeguarding Russia's eastern frontiers.
During his remarks in Sakhalin, President Putin dismissed Japan's sanctions as "unprovoked".
He declared: "Japan has identified Russia as a major source of threats. I would like to point out that we are not threatening Japan. On the contrary, it has territorial claims against our country."
Russia has steadily expanded its military footprint on the islands over the past decade, with Iturup serving as Moscow's principal military air base in the region.
The archipelago gained strategic importance during the Cold War, providing air and sea installations as the Soviet Union faced off against the United States and its Pacific ally, Japan.
Bilateral relations deteriorated sharply after Japan joined fellow G7 nations in imposing sanctions on Moscow following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while also providing financial and non-lethal defence assistance to Kyiv.
Previous visits by senior Russian figures, including former president Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, had already drawn protests from Tokyo.
Chinese and Russian warships last month conducted a joint patrol through a strait in the Kuril chain.
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