Deputy Prime Minister and Plenipotentiary of the President of Russia in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev proposed to consider the residents of the American state of Alaska as subjects of the Russian Empire. He made such an offer in response to an article in a Japanese newspaper that in the United States, Russians born in the South Kuril Islands are considered to be natives of Japan.
“It seems to me that this is such a new position in international law, we are ready to develop it creatively. I am ready to talk with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about how the residents of Alaska are perceived as residents of the Russian Empire - Trutnev told reporters in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, quoted by RIA Novosti.
On December 6, political analyst Natalya Eliseeva suggested that Washington is taking advantage of the absence of a formal agreement to create an image of the Kuril Islands as "Japanese islands" in society.
“There is, of course, an unofficial thing: the Kuriles are ours, this is the territory of the Russian Federation, period. But in the documents, an official agreement has not yet been concluded, one way or another periodically questions on this matter from the same Japan arise , - the expert explained. In the future, American officials may take a similar move in relation to Kaliningrad, Eliseeva said.
The Japanese newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun previously reported that in the rules for drawing green cards, Russians born in the South Kuriles are considered natives of Japan. According to the publication, the US State Department thinks so since 2018. Officially, the United States believes that the South Kuril Islands are part of Japan.
Japan claims the Kuril Islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and the Habomai Ridge, citing the 1855 bilateral Treaty on Trade and Frontiers. Moscow's position is that the islands became part of the USSR following the Second World War and Russian sovereignty over them is beyond question.
In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed a joint declaration in which the Kremlin agreed, after the conclusion of a peace treaty, to consider the possibility of transferring Habomai and Shikotan to Japan. At the same time, there was no talk about the islands of Kunashir and Iturup. However, subsequent negotiations did not lead to anything and the two countries never signed a peace treaty.
