A journalist from the Japanese publication Hokkaido Shimbun has been detained on Sakhalin Island, in the Russian Far East, on suspicion of espionage. The Russian Federal Security Service alleges that he was collecting information about the country’s defense capabilities.
The detention of the Japanese journalist takes place against the backdrop of strained relations between Moscow and Tokyo, marked by the territorial dispute over a group of Pacific islands and the military closeness between Russia and China.
In a statement published on Tuesday, October 13, the FSB claims that the journalist allegedly gathered information about Russia’s defense capabilities at the request of Japanese intelligence services, to use against the security of the Russian state.
The official Russian agency TASS specified that the journalist was accredited to a structure of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the administrative center of the Sakhalin region, and that Moscow accuses him of spying on behalf of one of the Japanese special services.
The Kuril Islands continue to strain relations between Russia and Japan.
One of the main points of conflict between the two countries is represented by four islands from the Kuril archipelago, occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, at the end of the Second World War, which Japan claims and considers to be under illegal Russian occupation.
Specifically, it is about Iturup, called Etorofu in Japanese, Kunashir, known in Japan as Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group, which Moscow includes in the Sakhalin region, while Tokyo considers them part of the Hokkaido prefecture, which they were part of before the war.
Even more so, the two states use different names for this territory: Russia refers to it as the South Kurils, while Japan calls them the Northern Territories.
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