Tuesday 29 September 2026
12:00pm – 1:15pm (UK) / 8:00pm – 9:15pm (Japan)

Why Now? Putin Visits a Disputed Island

Online webinar, accessible remotely via Zoom

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

In August 2026, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the disputed island called Etorofu in Japanese (Iturup in Russian) for the first time. It is one of four islands at the southern end of the Kuril chain controlled by Russia since 1945 but claimed by Japan to be part of its territory. Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi criticised Putin’s visit as ‘absolutely unacceptable’. The two countries have been locked in a territorial dispute over the islands since the end of the Second World War. Why has Putin chosen to visit now?

In this webinar, Professor Akihiro Iwashita will explain the current status of the Northern Territories dispute, explore the potential reasons behind President Putin’s visit and discuss its implications for Russia–Japan diplomacy and security in Northeast Asia.

About the contributors

Dr Akihiro Iwashita

Dr Akihiro Iwashita is Director of the Research Center for Global Risk, Nagasaki University, and Specially Appointed Professor at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University. His published work includes A 4,000 Kilometer Journey Along the Sino-Russian Border (SRC, 2004), Japan’s Border Issues: Pitfalls and Perspectives (Routledge, 2016) and Geo-politics in Northeast Asia (Routledge, 2016). He spent 2007–2008 as a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and published New Geopolitics and the Rediscovery of the U.S.-Japan Alliance: Reshaping “Northeast Asia” beyond the Border (Brookings Institution, 2010). Throughout his career, he has been committed to supporting the global border studies community, founding the Japan International Border Studies Network in 2011, organising the 12th Border Regions in Transition Conference (Fukuoka and Pusan, 2012) and serving as the president of the Association for Borderlands Studies (2015–2016). He has also organised and led numerous tours of contested Eurasian border areas, laying foundations for dispute settlement and mutual understanding.

Professor Paul Richardson

Paul Richardson is Professor of Geopolitics and Border Studies at the University of Birmingham. His research activities focus on national identity, nationalism, borders, sovereignty and territory, with a regional interest on Russia and Eurasia. His research has been supported by the ESRC, AHRC, JSPS, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust. He is author of At the Edge of the Nation: The Southern Kurils and the Search for Russia’s National Identity, which was nominated for the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographer’s Political Geography Research Group Book Prize and has been reviewed to critical acclaim in: The Russian Review, Inner Asia, Journal of Asian Studies, The Historian, Pacific Affairs and Japanese Studies. His first trade book, Myths of Geography, has appeared in ten languages, and his research has also been published in leading journals across disciplines, including Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers; Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Geopolitics, Politics; and Eurasian Geography and Economics.