Russian President Vladimir Putin has disclosed a plan for a museum construction project to commemorate a military operation by forces of the former Soviet Union who landed on islands in northern Japan in 1945.
The islands include four that Japan now calls the Northern Territories. Russia controls the four. Japan claims them. The Japanese government maintains the four are an inherent part of Japan’s territory. It says the four were illegally occupied after World War Two.
Putin revealed the program to build museums in the Russian Far East during a speech on Thursday at a Russia-sponsored international conference known as the Eastern Economic Forum.
He said he had instructed officials to perpetuate the memory of the landing operation. He called it one of the last battles of World War Two.
Putin added that the battle became a symbol of the courage of “soldiers and officers who crushed the seemingly impregnable enemy fortifications.”
Soviet troops started the operation on August 18, 1945, days after Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration to clearly express its intention to surrender.
Both sides suffered heavy fatalities in fierce fighting on Shumshu Island, which is close to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Personnel of the now-defunct Imperial Japanese military, who were guarding the island at the time, were disarming themselves when the battle began.