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Russia withdraws missile systems from islands disputed with Japan, allegedly to use in its war in Ukraine. Photo/REUTERS
TOKYO – Russia has withdrawn two S-300 surface-to-air missile systems from a series of disputed islands in the Far East that Japan claims as its own.
The transfer of the two missile systems was revealed by satellite imagery seen by Kyodo news agency.
Yu Koizumi, a lecturer at the University of Tokyo who analyzed images from a United States (US) space technology company; Maxar suspects that Russia will reuse the two S-300V4 systems for its war in Ukraine.
“The Russian military deployed all the weapons they had, which is proof of their active involvement in the (Ukrainian) conflict,” said Koizumi, as quoted from Kyodo, Sunday (3/9/2023).
Moscow deployed two S-300V4s on Iturup and Kunashir, two of the four Russian-held Kuril Islands, in late 2020. Tokyo, which calls the Kuril Islands its Northern Territories, protested the move at the time.
Kyodo notes that Maxar images show two S-300V4 systems at Kasatka Bay in Iturup (known in Japan as Hitokappu Bay in Etorofu) and in Yuzhno-Kurilsk in Kunashir (known as Furukamappu in Kunashiri) in September 2022.
Koizumi said he believed the two systems had been moved to Russia’s western border with Ukraine in preparation for potential retaliatory attacks.
According to him, a number of old tanks and old howitzers in southern Sakhalin were allegedly repaired and sent to Ukraine.
The residents of Iturup and Kunashir, the lecturer continued, had also been mobilized into the Russian military in unspecified numbers, and some of them had died.