US Position on Kuril Islands Fuels Revanchist Mood, Russian Foreign Ministry Says

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has slammed the US Department of State’s demand for Russians living in the Kuril Islands to name Japan as their place of birth, stressing that Washington encourages revanchism and revisionist mood, TASS informed.

“Do we need another evidence that the United States is a revisionist power? Under the 1945 decision, the Kuril Islands were handed over to the Soviet Union. Today, the Department of State is calling in question the outcome of World War II and is encouraging revanchism (political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a country),” the ministry stated on its official Telegram channel. “Know your borders and ‘red lines,” it stressed.

Earlier, Japan’s Hokkaido Simbun reported citing the rules for the green card lottery published on the State Department’s website that Russians born in the Kuril Islands should say their place of birth is Japan, while the natives of Sakhalin should write that they hail from Russia.