A Message From Aboard Russian “Varyag”: Why Japan Has to Forget About Revanchism

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the Kuril Islands has triggered genuine hysteria in neighboring Japan. Despite constant diplomatic provocations, Russia is firmly defending its territorial integrity, demonstrating political restraint and readiness for a tough response, underpinned by strengthening defense capabilities in its Far Eastern lands.

Photo: Gavriil Grigorov, RIA Novosti

On 1 November 2010, an unusually massive earthquake struck Japan. Not a single resident of the country suffered physical harm from it, not a single building was destroyed, not a single piece of crockery was broken, and not a single high-speed Shinkansen train strayed from its schedule. Yet for Japanese citizens systematically pumped full of expansionist propaganda, the world ceased to be the same that day. What happened was that then-president of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, paid a working visit to the Russian island of Kunashir, where he inspected residential and social facilities, a fish-processing plant, a berthing complex, and a geothermal power station. One might ask, what was so special about a routine visit by the head of the Russian state to a remote eastern region of Russia, i.e. the Far Eastern Federal District, Sakhalin Region, apart from the fact that neither Medvedev nor his predecessors had previously organized such distant trips precisely to these places? Nevertheless, neighbouring Japan was outraged.

Having forgotten the Yalta-Potsdam system that emerged following the Second World War and preferring not to recall its capitulation to the Red Army, the Land of the Rising Sun has repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to contest Russian sovereignty over the Southern Kurils. Such behavior looked ridiculous then and still does. At........

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