Russian air defense systems have disappeared from the Kuril Islands near Japan. The military probably wants to move them because of Ukrainian airstrikes.
MOSCOW – New satellite images show that Russian air defense systems have disappeared in the Kuril Islands. The Japanese news agency reports Kyodo News. The military may have withdrawn them for use in the Ukraine war. The systems were originally intended to ward off a hypothetical Japanese attack. Russia controls the Kuril Islands, but Japan claims the chain of islands as its own. Therefore, in 2020, Russia deployed several air defense systems on the southern islands.
The Japanese news agency cites an analysis by political scientist Yu Koizumi from the University of Tokyo. Koizumi apparently evaluated satellite images from the American space company Maxar.
Russia and Japan officially at war to this day
The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands 1200 kilometers long. The archipelago separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific and connects the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka to the north with the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the south. The Kuril Islands have been administered by Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but are also claimed by Japan. To this day, Russia and Japan are still formally at war with each other.
Now there is speculation that Russia could move the defense systems from the east to the west of the country to protect against Ukrainian air attacks. The S-300 air defense system has been used since the Soviet Union.
Ukrainian airstrikes appear to be having an effect
Ukraine has intensified its air strikes on Russia in recent weeks. On Wednesday, six Russian regions and Crimea reported attacks on military airports and other infrastructure. It was the largest Ukrainian attack on Russian territory to date. It stands to reason that the Russian military now wants to use the vanished air defense systems to repel these attacks.
Also gone are old Soviet tanks and howitzers stationed on the Pacific island of Sakhalin. The device should be loud Kyodo News previously repaired and refurbished in surrounding factories. The longer the war progresses, the more often old Soviet military equipment is reported from the front.
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