Russia's Ominous Warning to America's Closest Ally in Asia

A Russian diplomat warned this month of unspecific retaliatory measures against the United States and Japan, should alliance activities threaten the country's Far East.

"We are closely monitoring the intensification of Japanese American maneuvers, including with the involvement of external actors, near our Far Eastern borders," Amb. Nikolay Nozdrev told Russia's Sputnik news agency. "We regularly warn Tokyo that, if such activity continues, we will be forced to take countersteps in order to block military threats to Russia," Nozdrev said, without elaborating.

The two neighbors are in a dispute over a Russia-controlled archipelago in the Northern Pacific—called the Kuril Islands by the former and known as the Northern Territories by the latter—and have been unable to negotiate a peace treaty for decades.

Any hope of a formal reconciliation was further set back by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when Japan's strong opposition led it to join the United States and others in imposing several rounds of economic sanctions on the Russian economy.

Today, Russian and Japanese forces frequently encounter one another in Pacific waters but especially in the Sea of Japan, where Russia's Pacific Fleet is headquartered in the Peter the Great Gulf.

Moscow's strategic alignment with Beijing has seen Tokyo double down on commitments to strengthen its role within the decadeslong U.S.-Japan alliance, long described by military leaders in Washington as the cornerstone of the American-led alliance architecture in Asia.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan expressed concern at Russia's engagement with North Korea, another neighbor. The U.S. and its allies say they have traded arms in exchange for technical assistance for Pyongyang's spy satellite program.

"We are talking about a significant increase in military spending, acquiring strike potential, lifting self-restrictions on arms exports, as well as a significant deepening of military cooperation with Washington," Nozdrev said, citing "concerns in our country and in other states neighboring Japan."

Nozdrev's remarks, part of a series of state media interviews for Victory Day on May 9, appeared to signal the Kremlin's wariness of a potential military imbalance in the country's Far East, even as Russian forces push for new breakthroughs on the battlefields of Ukraine.

"Kremlin officials employed Kremlin narratives about historical revisionism and provocations on Russia's borders with Japan, likely as part of efforts to paint Russia as a Pacific power and support China against the U.S.-led alliance system in the Indo-Pacific," the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said in a recent assessment.

Nozdrev went on to describe Japan's ongoing claim to the Kuril archipelago—repeated last month in the Japanese Foreign Ministry's annual Diplomatic Bluebook—as a "morbid obsession," according to the Russian news service RIA Novosti.

Nozdrev speaks for Russia's President Vladimir Putin, whose threats against Japan should be taken seriously, said Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who used to train Japan's Self-Defense Forces.

"Japanese leaders and officials have been very clear that they believe a Russian victory [in Ukraine] would encourage Chinese aggression toward Taiwan and elsewhere in East Asia—to include Japanese territory," Newsham, the author of When China Attacks: A Warning to America, told Newsweek.

"Putin does not like any of this," he added. "I doubt the Russians will resort to military means—though I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they encouraged North Korea to 'act up' and cause the Japanese some worries."

Nozdrev arrived Tokyo in March to replace former Ambassador Mikhail Galuzin, who had departed Japan 16 months earlier and later became Russia's deputy foreign minister.

Nozdrev started his tenure by warning the Japanese leadership of "severe consequences" should any Patriot air defense systems made in Japan under U.S. license be sent to Ukraine.

Russia's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a written request for comment when asked to elaborate on Nozdrev's latest threat.

Japan's Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Yoko Kamikawa, its foreign minister, said last week that bilateral relations with Russia were "in very difficult situation."

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment out of hours.

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