{"id":76651,"date":"2026-08-19T07:39:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T07:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/76651\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T07:39:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T07:39:39","slug":"will-putins-kuril-islands-visit-push-japan-closer-to-ukraine-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/76651\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Putin\u2019s Kuril Islands visit push Japan closer to Ukraine?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan<\/a> is weighing how far to push back after Russian President Vladimir Putin<\/a> visited a disputed island last week<\/a>, as analysts debate whether tougher measures would have much impact on Moscow.Some observers urged Japan to recall its ambassador, impose additional sanctions and deepen cooperation with Ukraine<\/a> to show it would not be \u201cbullied\u201d, while others said Tokyo had little economic leverage left given already weak bilateral ties and its reliance on Russian natural gas.<\/p>\n

Putin made his first-ever visit to one of four disputed islands, collectively called the Northern Territories by Japan and the Southern Kurils by Russia, last Thursday.<\/p>\n

Japanese media reported that senior foreign ministry officials discussed possible responses on Friday, including tougher sanctions and the temporary recall of Japan\u2019s ambassador.<\/p>\n

\"AkiraAkira Muto, Japan\u2019s ambassador to Russia, arrives at the the foreign ministry in Moscow on Tuesday after being summoned over Japanese officials\u2019 criticism of Putin\u2019s Kuril Islands visit. Photo: AFPOn Tuesday, Japan\u2019s envoy to Moscow Akira Muto was summoned<\/a> to the Russian foreign ministry after Tokyo protested against<\/a> Putin\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n

During the meeting, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin warned that his country reserved the \u201cright to take appropriate countermeasures\u201d against Japan, given Tokyo\u2019s continued policy of sanctioning Moscow and its support for Kyiv, according to the Russian foreign ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan is weighing how far to push back after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a disputed island last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48958,12,374,49174,47331,8,29239,12179,7982,49175,1922,10505,636,358,3282],"class_list":["post-76651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-akira-muto","tag-china","tag-east-asia","tag-habomai","tag-iturup-island","tag-japan","tag-keio-university","tag-kyiv","tag-moscow","tag-nikolay-nozdrev","tag-north-korea","tag-northern-territories","tag-russia","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}