Russia Invaded Japanese Islands With U.S. Ships — After Japan Surrendered

By Sebastien Roblin,War Is Boring

Seventy years after World War II ended, Japan and Russia are still trying to sign a peace treaty. The persistent bone of contention? The Kuril Islands, seized by Soviet troops in a bloody amphibious landing after Japan announced it was ready to surrender.

But how and why did the Soviets seize the Kurils in the first place?

The Kuril Islands — also known as Chishima or the Northern Territories in Japan — are a chain of 56 volcanic islands stretching 810 miles from the northeastern Japanese island of Hokkaido to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Originally populated by the indigenous Ainu people, the archipelago began receiving Japanese administration during the 17th century under the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The Japanese began encountering Russian explorers traveling southward after the settlement of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the 18th century. In 1855, Edo Japan and Imperial Russia signed a treaty in which the former claimed the southernmost islands — Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands — while Urup Island and everything north of it went to Russia.

Then an 1875 treaty gave Japan all the Kurils, in exchange for Russia gaining all of Sakhalin, a large island to the west. You can see a map of the island treaties here.

However, after Japan dealt a shocking defeat to the tzar’s forces in 1905, Tokyo got full control of the Kurils as well as the southern half of Sakhalin. In subsequent decades, the Japanese government built up towns, administrative services and infrastructure across the remote islands. Thousands of ethnic Japanese began settling there to fish and mine valuable minerals.

The Kurils, at bottom, extending from Hokkaido to the southwest (left) and across from Sakhalin Island opposite the Sea of Okhotsk. Photo via Google Earth