{ "archive_path": "archive/1790935426.06209", "base_url": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands", "basename": "", "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-02 10:03", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thediplomat.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/index.html" }, "domain": "thediplomat.com", "extension": "", "hash": "VKAN084B7R7JQGP5AZAR", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thediplomat.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:19.471560+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:18.708339+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:20.017903+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:19.481033+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:40.317490+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:35.582258+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpqreunnbt", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:35.568184+00:00", "index_texts": [ "President Vladimir Putin\u2019s mid-August visit to the Kuril Islands, his first as Russia\u2019s leader, inflamed a decades-old territorial dispute with Japan and drew worldwide attention to the two countries\u2019 border in the northern Pacific. But over the past several years, Russian forces have been increasingly active far to the south, around Japan\u2019s southwestern-most islands, in a demonstration of the Russian military\u2019s reach and its willingness to challenge its rivals on its own and alongside China.\nThe dispute centers on the southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, which Japan calls its Northern Territories and says the Soviets seized illegally after Tokyo\u2019s surrender at the end of World War II. Thousands of former Japanese residents of the islands are still alive, and resolving the dispute is a high priority for Japanese leaders. Russia\u2019s activity on the islands, especially its military buildup, is therefore a sensitive issue for Tokyo.\nPutin\u2019s visit to the island Russia calls Iturup and Japan calls Etorofu on August 13 struck a chord with Tokyo not only for its location but also for its timing. Putin first traveled to Sakhalin Island \u2013 his first visit there in 13 years \u2013 to observe drills by Russia\u2019s Pacific Fleet, part of a month-long series of exercises in the area that Japan protested. His visit also came days after the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and days before the anniversary of Japan\u2019s World War II surrender announcement.\nPutin\u2019s Kuril visit coincided with another Russian movement much farther south. The same day, Japan\u2019s Defense Ministry reported that it had observed a Russian navy Improved Kilo-class submarine and a search-and-rescue vessel sailing north between the two Japanese islands closest to Taiwan, Yonaguni and Iriomote. That was one of at least 14 transits by Russian vessels around Yonaguni so far in 2026, a considerable increase over recent years.\nA review of releases by the Japanese military\u2019s Joint Staff from the past five years shows no such transits in 2021 and just two in 2022, both between Yonaguni and Iriomote. 2023 saw another two transits between Yonaguni and Iriomote, followed by a jump to six transits \u2013 five between Yonaguni and Iriomote and one between Yonaguni and Taiwan \u2013 in 2024. After a dip to four Yonaguni-Iriomote transits in 2025, there have been 11 transits between those islands and three between Yonaguni and Taiwan so far this year, the most recent on September 25.\nActivity around Japan\u2019s Southwest Islands is a growing concern for Tokyo. China has increased its military operations there since the early 2010s, training to sail and fly around and through that island chain. Chinese activity near Yonaguni and its neighboring islands, known as the Sakishima Islands, has also picked up in recent years, a sign of Beijing\u2019s interest in familiarizing its forces with the area around Taiwan. In late 2024, a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed between Yonaguni and Iriomote for the first time, drawing a formal protest from Tokyo. In response, Japan has increased its military presence on the islands, opening bases for radars, electronic-warfare units, and surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles on Yonaguni and Ishigaki, which is just east of Iriomote.\nSome Russian transits around Yonaguni appear to be part of routine voyages to and from the Pacific Fleet\u2019s bases near Vladivostok. There may be a practical reason to use that route. \u201cFor ships coming south from Vladivostok through the East China Sea, the passage between Yonaguni and Iriomote provides a convenient way into the Philippine Sea without going farther northeast through the Miyako Strait,\u201d Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a retired U.S. Navy officer, said in an email. Shugart said Russia\u2019s navy may also have a political reason to avoid the more direct route to the South China Sea through the Taiwan Strait: \u201cGiven Beijing\u2019s sensitivity to foreign naval transits of the Strait, routine Russian use could invite the observation that even the Russians treat it as an international waterway.\u201d\nBut the behavior of other Russian vessels around Yonaguni appears more likely to be \u201cdeliberate signaling toward Japan,\u201d Shugart said. In some cases, Russian vessels have loitered in the area, perhaps to monitor Japanese activity and response measures. In its annual \u201cDefense of Japan\u201d report, Japan\u2019s Defense Ministry singled out an unusual operation in January this year, in which a Russian Vishnya-class intelligence-gathering ship was seen \u201cnavigating for an extended period\u201d around the Sakishima Islands and Okinawa. Joint Staff releases showed that over the course of 12 days the vessel sailed south between Taiwan and Yonaguni and circled the Sakishima Islands before crossing the Miyako Strait and lingering southeast of Okinawa for three days. \u201cNotably, this marked the first confirmed instance of such a vessel circumnavigating the Sakishima Islands,\u201d the report said.\nThe ministry\u2019s report linked recent activity around the Sakishima Islands with a years-long uptick in Russian operations around Japan, \u201cincluding exercises and training likely intended to verify the results of military reforms\u201d and operations farther afield that are likely meant to keep the U.S., Japan, and others \u201cin check.\u201d\nSince Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, its navy \u201chas been continuously involved in active deterrent operations against the United States and its Western allies,\u201d Alexey Muraviev, a professor at Edith Cowan University in Australia who studies Russian military strategy, said in an interview late last year. Regular deployments to Southeast Asia, where Moscow has sought to bolster its military ties, are a part of those operations, Muraviev said, but they also reflect continued concerns about the US and its allies, especially Japan. \u201cRussia clearly sees Japan as a military risk \u2013 partially because of its alignment with the United States through security and defense ties, partially because of [the] unresolved territorial dispute,\u201d Muraviev said.\nRussia\u2019s activity around Japan also shows its deepening military ties with China, which has become a more important partner amid Moscow\u2019s international isolation following its invasion of Ukraine. Over the past several years, Sino-Russian bomber and naval patrols have incorporated a wider range of ships and aircraft, including diesel-electric submarines and nuclear-capable bombers, and traveled farther, sometimes circling the Japanese archipelago. During their most recent naval patrol, in July, their ships transited east through the Miyako Strait, headed north along Japan\u2019s east coast, and then sailed west through the Vries Strait, which separates the Kuril Islands that Japan claims from the rest of the chain. The route demonstrated the two navies\u2019 increasing ability to operate through \u201cstrategic waterways,\u201d Chinese experts told state media.\nRussia has also echoed China\u2019s criticism of what it calls Japan\u2019s \u201cmilitarism,\u201d a line of attack that Beijing started pushing late last year, likely in an attempt to stoke backlash to Japan\u2019s growing military investments and regional security role. Russian officials returned to that talking point in the weeks following Putin\u2019s visit to the Kuril Islands, lashing out at Japan for hosting a military exercise with the U.S. around Hokkaido, the Japanese main island closest to the Kurils, and objecting to its proximity to Russian territory. \u201cThe Japanese side was firmly informed that provocative military activity near our country\u2019s far eastern borders is categorically unacceptable,\u201d Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on September 1." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:33.272589+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:33.264557+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Russia\u2019s Navy Shows Its Reach Around Japan\u2019s Southwestern Islands \u2013 The Diplomat", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:33.223333+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:33.212816+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/index.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T13:30:20.026983+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Russia\u2019s Navy Shows Its Reach Around Japan\u2019s Southwestern Islands \u2013 The Diplomat", "warc": null, "wget": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/index.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1790935426.06209", "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-02T13:30:35.582258+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-02T13:30:18.708339+00:00", "path": "/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "88f1c178-a26d-42b3-8d3b-43e33fafd4cd", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1790935426-import.txt" ], "tags": ",escalation,war-wiki,pool", "tags_str": "escalation,war-wiki,pool", "timestamp": "1790935426.06209", "title": "Russia\u2019s Navy Shows Its Reach Around Japan\u2019s Southwestern Islands \u2013 The Diplomat", "updated": "2026-10-02T13:30:18.708170+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-10-02 13:30", "url": "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/russias-navy-shows-its-reach-around-japans-southwestern-islands/" }