Ahead of president’s trip, tensions rise over weapons on Russian-controlled Kurils, some of which are claimed by Japan

Russia has attempted to smooth over the latest episode in its missile diplomacy, with a Kremlin spokesman saying he hoped the stationing of anti-ship missiles on disputed islands off the Japanese coast would not spoil bilateral relations ahead of a visit by Vladimir Putin to Japan.

The Russian president is due to travel to Japan in mid-December, and one of the items on the agenda will be negotiations over the Kurils, a chain of volcanic islands that runs between Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula and Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

The Soviet Union occupied the four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, at the end of the second world war, and the dispute has meant that the two countries never signed a formal peace treaty ceasing hostilities after the war. Japan lays claim to these four southernmost islands.

There have been murmurings about some kind of compromise settlement in both Moscow and Tokyo in recent months, with a possible breakthrough expected during Putin’s visit.

But tensions have been created by reports that Bastion and Bal anti-ship missile systems have been moved to the islands. The Bastion missiles have a range of up to 188 miles (300km). Russian media reported on Tuesday that the missile systems had been moved to the islands and were now operational. The Bal system has a similar range to the Bastion.

The Japanese foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, said the government needed time to consider an appropriate response to the Russian move, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Wednesday that Russia had the sovereign right to locate the missiles there but said it should not spoil the atmosphere ahead of Putin’s visit.



“From our point of view it should not in any way influence the centripetal trend which exists in our bilateral relations with Tokyo,” he told journalists on Wednesday. He said the trend held both for economic cooperation and for discussions about a potential peace deal.

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The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, plans to host Putin in his home city of Nagato during the mid-December visit. He has been attempting to convince a sceptical public of the need for a new, more conciliatory approach to the island issue.

Russia has repeatedly said it will not negotiate on the sovereignty of the islands. Earlier this year, the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said Russia was considering building a military base on the islands.

Putin and Abe met recently during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru, after which Putin said the two leaders were ready “to move forward in the development of bilateral relations”.

Earlier this week, Moscow and Nato engaged in a rhetorical spat after reports Russia had moved Bastion and Iskander missiles to its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between the Nato members Poland and Lithuania. Putin also said in an interview that Russia could consider making preventive strikes against US missile defence infrastructure in Europe if Moscow felt the installations were a threat to its security.

Peskov said: “Russia is doing everything necessary to ensure its security in the face of expansion by Nato towards its borders. The alliance really is an aggressive bloc; therefore Russia must do everything it can, and in this case it has the sovereign right to take necessary measures across its whole territory.”