Country Report: Russia (August 2025)

Country Report: Russia

History issues pervaded summertime Russian coverage of East Asia, including views of WWII and the Korean War. They arose in discussions of the September 3 Victory Day parade, in writings on Japan and South Korea, and in a worldview centered on the relevance of the outcome of the war for international relations in general. Reflections on BRICS and the SCO accompanied the Tianjin SCO summit. Sino-Russian relations drew the spotlight too, as did Russo-DPRK ties, in light of leaders meeting in China. Slight hope was registered for ties to Seoul but not to Tokyo.

SCO/BRICS

Kirill Fenin in Izvestiya in July argued that the SCO operates in the shadow of now actively developing BRICS, despite the fact that it has a full infrastructure, including a secretariat. Its only truly operating organ is a regional, anti-terrorist structure; yet China in its cooperation with Central Asian countries, created a parallel organization without Russian participation, noted Andrei Vinogradov, adding that the expansion of the SCO over a decade posed new problems, leading to BRICS becoming the more important platform for foreign policy coordination. In contrast, Vladimir Shapovalov regards the SCO as the key platform for political communications in Eurasia. At the Tianjin summit, the SCO+ format with 30 states will take shape. Completing preparations now is a project to establish a universal center to address challenges and threats to security in Tashkent and an anti-narcotics center in Dushanbe, while Bishkek is targeted to host a structure against organized crime. With 10 members, two observer states, and 14 other dialogue partners, as others are applying to join, the SCO is advancing. Given recent complications in the functioning of BRICS, the role of the SCO has grown in coordinating the forces opposed to the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese policies of the US and its allies. This greatly raises the economic coordinating agenda of the SCO, especially for Russia, China, and Iran. Some states missed the BRICS summit in Brazil but will be in Tianjin. However, experts warn not to put too much hope in the SCO summit, readers are told. For China, this is only one of the platforms it utilizes.

On September 1 in Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, Ekaterina Bakhmet’eva and Alexandra Morozkina asked if an expanded BRICS poses a problem. They refer to BRICS as the center of attraction with geopolitical and economic significance for developing countries in the global majority. Expansion, declared in 2023 and followed in 2024, complicated forging a shared agenda, including for economic development. However, so far, there is agreement on reforming the international financial architecture, innovation, and technology, both to utilize the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to overcome social and economic inequality. The Rio de Janeiro declaration of 2025 successfully planned a new strategy, readers are told. If countries differ on trade and investment, this, at least, raises the prospect of sharing experiences.

On GDP, the countries range from the UAE and Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia. China and India are rising fastest. The 11 BRICS countries comprise 49% of the world population. The age make-up of the labor force matters; rapid aging in Russia and China lowers the role of the demographic factor in economic growth. China and Russia have the advantage of highly qualified cadres.

In Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’ on September 12, Andrei Kadomtsev praised the success of the SCO in the struggle for leadership in the Global South, pointing to Western states’ concern that they were falling behind in the battle for influence there. Weakened US leadership and the appeal of the Western project have opened the door to the advance of an alternative model of constructing the world order. The G7 demonstrates its inability to address large-scale strategic projects. No structure now exists with sufficient authority. In these circumstances, the SCO is showing the world an alternative model of global governance based on non-interference in internal affairs and the concept of a multipolar world. Members of the Global South find the path open to credits, investment, infrastructure, and markets, as BRICS also enables the formation of transnational transport corridors, reducing dependence on traditional maritime routes controlled by the West. After the SCO and BRICS had established banks, the Tianjin SCO summit decided to add its own development bank. Distorting the significance of the SCO and BRICS, the West has to realize that with each year, these bodies demonstrate growing appeal and functionality. Putin’s four-day visit to China had important significance for global geopolitics, strengthening Russia-China cooperation and confirming that the SCO functions as a new institution of global governance. The West cannot accept a polycentric model of the world, where it loses its dominant position. 

China-Russia Relations
On August 31 in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Aleksandr Lukin reported on Putin’s visit to China, saying the two countries need each other’s support. He identifies two aims for the visit. One, a return visit for Xi’s May visit to Moscow, where he participated in the 80th anniversary victory parade as the main guest and the only leader of the “Big Four” anti-Hitler coalition. Many in Europe and the US are not enthusiastic about the contemporary Chinese theory that WWII began in 1937 with Japan’s attack on China or even in 1931, when Japan seized Manchuria and formed a puppet government there. They also deny that China suffered the most significant losses in the war and made the main contribution to victory. Russia, too, says little on the official level. As is known, in August 1945, Soviet troops broke up Japan’s occupation of China. The issue of the beginning of the war and the contribution to victory is becoming ever more politicized. Xi spoke about that in Moscow in May, making clear that the role of China and Russia in victory is not only being treated negatively but is directly connected to the role of both countries in the contemporary world and recognition of their role in a new world order they seek to forge.
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Mutual support is needed today. Putin’s presence at the Beijing parade is not only a sign of respect for a country that took on substantial Japanese forces and possibly prevented Japan from opening a “second front” against the USSR, but also a demonstration of political unity on a whole host of contemporary problems, noted Lukin.

The second aim of the visit was the SCO summit, an organization that, over a quarter century, has widened and deepened. Of its three directions—security, economy, and cultural cooperation—the first has resulted in the greatest achievements. Special significance lies in joint opposition to international terrorism. Economic cooperation in the SCO is more complicated, lacking any notable successes. There has long been talk of creating an SCO development bank or other financial mechanism for cross-national economic projects. Many speak of the de-dollarization of trade or use of an alternate currency, as Russia-China trade is 90% conducted in yuan, but some SCO members object to using the yuan in place of the dollar. Shifting from 6 to 10 members greatly increased the SCO’s potential as a key institution of Eurasian security.

The geopolitical upheaval in 2022 brought serious structural change to the international system, further raising the significance of the SCO. Perhaps current changes could further increase its effectiveness. Russia is extremely interested in it becoming a firm pillar of a multipolar world, an all-encompassing organization for security in “Greater Eurasia.” It also needs to draw together economic opposition to current US policies. Another potential project proposed by Russia is an “SCO energy club.” So far, an SCO university only has a virtual presence. Also needed is an expert forum of specialists. The very fact that the leaders (including observers and partners) of the non-Western world gathered has considerable symbolic significance. Going from symbol to reality should follow. In August, despite secondary sanctions and American threats, China boosted purchases of Russian oil. However, the trade level fell somewhat in the first half of the year, which could be due to certain goods already filling the Russian market or to fear of secondary sanctions in China because of troubles in money transfers. The visa system remains in place between China and Russia, if softened. Russia still falls behind many other states in receipt of Chinese investments. If slogans of a great friendship now heard everywhere please our souls, technical problems need to be resolved for this pleasure to have a solid material foundation, Lukin warns.

In Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’ No. 7, Igor Pozdniakov described Russia-China cooperation in education as a mutual projection of soft power. Noting that China has reformed its educational system, establishing a minimum of 4% of GDP or $1 trillion annually as funding and aiming by 2035 to become a world educational power, he added that leading Chinese institutions of higher education are already reaching that goal in international ratings. More than 200,000 foreign students study in China (down from about 500,000 prior to the epidemic). Russians number about 21,000, joining the US, India, South Korea, and Japan as a leader in number of students. More than 500 of them receive stipends from the Chinese government, including tuition and living expenses. Many features serve soft power. Russian students concentrate in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, as well as in provinces in Northeast China, Shandong, and Shenzhen. Beyond Chinese language preparation, they study economics, management, and engineering, and less so law, art, traditional Chinese medicine, philosophy, history, and agronomy. Russia is no less attractive to Chinese students, reaching 34,000 in number in 2023-24, 1,000 of whom receive stipends. Even as an anti-Russian campaign penetrates the great Chinese firewall, tens of thousands of families vote with their yuan, trusting the conditions of study in Russia. In the US and Australia, there are up to 200,000 Chinese students, but many are in short-term language courses. In Russia, the majority are oriented to higher professional education, including one year of language work, four years for undergraduates, and two years for master’s courses. As the numbers drop in the US and Canada, if Russia is not the leader in the number of students, considering the length of study, it is competitive. There are hundreds of joint educational programs, including a joint university in Shenzhen with 4,000 students and graduate students, where about 200 specialists from Moscow work. There is no shortage of specialists who know Russian, but there is a need to raise the quality of language preparation for specialists in foreign policy, trade, energy, etc., and for translators of the highest level.

Experts commented on China’s initiative for global governance in Kommersant on September 7. It was called one of the main results of the SCO summit, which Xi Jinping asserted would result in a more just and equal system of global governance, and which Putin said was timely. The initiative was explained as an evolution in China’s previously passive foreign policy doctrine, labeled the “five principles of peaceful coexistence”: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; mutual non-aggression; noninterference in each other’s internal affairs; equal and mutually beneficial relations; and peaceful coexistence with other countries. Xi’s initiative complements his other global initiatives (global development, civilization, and security). One aim is to improve China-India relations. There is no place in China’s idea for hegemony and pressure, making it attractive to the Global South.

Vasilli Kashin described Xi’s call as an expanded position of China on global governance, adding that not one of these conceptions is a program for action or a plan of a platform in any particular sphere. They are a vision, around which the support of the Global South will proceed. A further aim is to gradually transform global institutions and the rules of conduct in the international arena, leading to the formation of a new order consistent with China’s thinking and interests.

Anastasiia Likhacheva noted that China and Russia have a special role in this global governance, identified by Xi as proof of an important change in the Chinese approach. This was probably due to disappointments: failed attempts to reform existing international institutions, which are not resolving global problems, as the United States blocks their reform and damages them if they begin to harm its interests. Together with partners in BRICS and the SCO, they invite friendly regional formats from the EEU to ASEAN. This maximally serves the interests of Russia. The challenge remains how to construct an effective, non-hegemonic order, unlike anything that has existed previously. There are reasons for optimism: the closeness of the positions of Russia and China on this, the chance of a more just world, and the fact that China considers itself strong enough to speak about the fate of the world. The theme of global governance has been bouncing around for 3-4 years. Now that China has brought it to the forefront, it has drawn a positive response on the whole, including from Russia. To date, China’s idea of the “common destiny of mankind” has not elicited serious support, not being well understood beyond China’s borders. China seeks to have the UN, WTO, and World Bank return to their original roles in support of discussion, economic competition, and support for countries regardless of their economic and political weight. Simple restoration is not enough. New conceptions are needed, readers are told. The main question is the place of individual states, including Russia, in the system of global governance. This is not a new idea in Chinese political mentality. China is ready to cover countries that recognize the dominance of its idea and are ready to accept its financial and political power under its own political and economic umbrella. As occurred with the concept of “BRI,” this idea will develop through books and even university courses over the near future. China will avoid Western political concepts, giving its own interpretations. Forging a new theory is not simple at all.

Another expert, Ivan Timofeev, described the foundation of Xi’s initiative as the idea of global security, voiced earlier, and recognizing China as working for the stabilization of a turbulent world based on win-win relations. It further combines military, economic, humanitarian, and other dimensions. Yet, Timofeev notes that how the initiative will be realized remains to be seen. Over the past two years, he credits China with actively undertaking concrete projects in support of global security, including military-technical assistance to various countries. It is in accord with the principle of indivisible security and opposed to the rudiments of the Cold War and to the politicization of economic and financial policies. The Chinese approach is of global scope with an accent on Asia as the locomotive of economic growth and the center of international cooperation. In rejecting sanctions, ideological standards, Cold War legacies, and threats of hegemonism, China’s initiative largely corresponds to Russia’s initiative for the architecture of Eurasian security. Judging from what Chinese officials have said about the initiative and China’s readiness to realize it together with Russia, the positions of the two will greatly coincide.

Russo-DPRK Relations

On July 16 in Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, Natal’ia Degtiareva wrote about the deepening all-around partnership of Russia and the DPRK, interviewing Georgii Toloraya after a visit by Sergey Lavrov to the DPRK. In November 2024, when the DPRK foreign minister went to Russia, the two sides acknowledged military assistance to Russia, although not yet informing the world about possible joint military operations. This visit ranged beyond bilateral relations to the continuation of the strategic dialogue agreed to by the leaders, thus covering the global situation. The all-around strategic partnership declared in June 2024 has led to intensive dialogue on security, defense, economics, culture, education, sports, youth policies, etc. The two countries have demonstrated almost total overlap of views on the international agenda. Both view the rise in military activity of the US, Japan, South Korea, and other Western countries as provocative, raising tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. In this context, Lavrov repeated Russia’s adherence to alliance responsibilities, and Kim declared readiness to continue support for the Russian special military operation if asked. Lavrov explained that Russia has no desire to become involved in North Korea-South Korea dialogue, unlike before, now acting exclusively in accord with the DPRK’s direction. Lavrov noted Kim Jong-un’s visit on May 9 to the Russian embassy, offering his support for forging a new world order opposed to neo-Nazism and Western domination. He called the alliance not temporary and firmly based on a clear strategic vision of the future.

In RSMD, Konstantin Osmolov wrote on echoes of the Korean War. He argued that the liberation of Korea had some peculiarities. Although the Soviet Army played the decisive role, a large part of North Korea and all of South Korea were not freed by it through direct fighting on their territory. Thus, the local population perceived the occupiers as suddenly giving up, and in South Korea, Americans arrived three weeks later. In this interval, Japanese authorities, to avoid pogroms against Japanese citizens or destruction of Shinto shrines, negotiated with leftist nationalists, who declared a Republic of Korea without it or Kim Gu’s leadership gaining acceptance as the legitimate government. In this way, it appeared that Korea had been liberated by itself, with no role for communists or nationalists, leading to an “unoccupied victory.” There was no liquidation of all the structures, and accomplices and collaborators dominant in security forces treated the strengthening of leftist political forces as the more serious threat. Without replacement cadres, pro-Japanese ones remained, accepted first by the Americans and then the South Korean administration. How was this the “victory of the Korean nation?” The US military administration kept collaborationists in posts. This outcome resonated in narratives on liberation and the results of WWII. Anti-North Korean propaganda distorts the North’s information on the liberation, as if the Soviet Army had been fully blotted out of photos.

At the outset of the DPRK, the role of the Soviet Army was underscored everywhere. Respect continued even in the Yeltsin era, when relations fell to almost zero, and wreaths were laid annually at the monument, as was still done by Kim Jong-un in 2021. Similar monuments are found in other regions. Toward the 1970s, Kim Il-sung changed the narrative to give the partisans the decisive role. It is incorrect to see it as a full omission of Russia’s role in liberating Korea.

The memorial in honor of Russian soldiers stands, and the museum for the victory in the civil war of liberation (referring to wars against Japan and the US aggression) has a third-floor hall of internationalists with portraits of Soviet fighters and Chinese volunteers. This gives room for flexibility: excursions for Koreans to the first and second floors, for Russians to the third. DPRK textbooks cover the victory of the Soviet Union over fascism, not overlooking the heroism and bravery of the Soviet people. Although the Soviet declaration of war against Japan is briefly noted, the decisive contribution to Japan’s capitulation and the liberation of Korea is deemed the work of Kim Il-sung. Nothing is said about the participation of Soviet soldiers in the liberation of Korea. We can only hope that, because of improved bilateral ties, coverage will be more realistic. Koreans, North and South, know almost nothing about the Soviet victory over fascist Germany.

Moreover, most South Koreans’ view of the US is not about the end of WWII, when the US did nothing for the victory over Japan in Korea, but over the Korean War. They ignore the Soviet factor in the liberation of Korea, usually asserting in textbooks that the Soviet Union hurriedly declared war on Japan to seize territory and to have the right to participate in the postwar peace settlement. South Korean interpretations of the liberation of the peninsula are repudiated here in favor of the argument that the Soviet Army did the job. Yoon Suk-yeol’s assertion that with independence began the occupation of the northern half by forces of communist totalitarianism is deemed misleading, as if first came some sort of liberation without the Soviets. The leadership of a temporary government in the South under Kim Gu, who supported a unified country, was also slighted by Yoon since this group was actually excluded in 1948 from the creation of the ROK.

What will change now after the improvement in relations between Russia and the DPRK? The agreement on a strategic partnership offers hope for further closeness in viewpoints, but one can also expect the opposite trend. The North will feel no need to change its thinking, and a common version will be built on silence. Much depends on the unfolding level of relations, but a realistic narrative in Seoul would be too painful by acknowledging that the country was liberated by external forces and ones having no connection to democracy. The article is not hopeful.

Georgii Toloraya in Valdai Club on July 27 described the strategic partnership of North Korea with Russia as a new stage in its international identity. He explained that from their treaty in June 2024, Russia got practical results and North Korea got these as well as a new identity on the international arena. Despite Western warnings that the agreement would lead the North to become more aggressive and intent on destabilizing the South, even more so in its political crisis, the North has been restrained and responsible. Kim’s words at a May 2025 reception at the Russian embassy were very close to Putin’s point of view: The USSR saved the planet and human civilization, including the liberation of Korea, and now it is necessary together to oppose the countries of neo-Nazism. Visiting Pyongyang in July, Lavrov expressed readiness to defend the interests of the DPRK and to oppose the hegemonic inclinations of non-regional powers. This is not a transactional relationship. The North is positioning itself as an irreplaceable element of the new world order, Toloraya explains.

Toloraya asks what the DPRK gained from its alliance with Russia. It strengthened its security, guaranteeing its defense by a nuclear power. Russia de facto recognized the presence on the peninsula of two separate, unfriendly states and the rejection of unification as just a plan for the South to swallow the North. Russia supports a balance of forces on the basis of indivisible security, leading to a new Eurasian security system. However, North Korea so far feels no need for a multilateral framework. That will come later. North Korea’s position at the UN is stronger since it has Russia’s support. Russia deems denuclearization of North Korea impossible and opposes sanctions. The DPRK has become a new, powerful player in international security with its role in the special military operation, gaining valuable knowledge, boosting its military industry, and receiving new technology. The “Kursk expedition” had great moral-political significance, and Kim Jong-un’s position was strengthened. Trade is boosted, revenue from arms sales aids finances, and goods from Russia as well as China are more available. From March to October 2024 Russia sent more than one million barrels of oil. Under construction is a new automobile bridge across the Tumen River. Tourism is developing. Educational exchanges are under way. This alliance can become a factor in forging a system of security and cooperation in Northeast Asia. Regional tension is due to the military activity of the US and its allies. With the new alliance, administrations in the US and South Korea may have to take a more sober stance.

Japan

On July 15 in Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, Oleg Paramonov wrote about the Japanese emperor’s visit to the descendants of Genghis Khan, the first to Mongolia in history. As heir, Naruhito had visited there in 2007. Although Japan’s emperor may not be an actual leader, unlike some kings in Europe, he now plays a role in matters of cultural diplomacy and ecology. Empress Masako is active too, even more so due to her background, as seen in Turkey on cultural legacy matters. She spent two years in Moscow in her preschool years and speaks Russian, and when her father was the UN ambassador, she studied in the US before graduating in law from Tokyo University, abandoning a diplomatic career for her marriage. She was depressed under the rigid controls of the Imperial House and for not producing a male successor. Lately, her condition has improved. They visited the Genghis Khan Museum, established with the cooperation of Japan, and joined the summer sports festival.

For the Japanese, the most significant part of the visit was the July 8 stop at the memorial to Japanese prisoners of war who died in 1945-47 after Mongolia followed the Soviet Union in declaring war on Japan. Left were more than half a million Japanese soldiers and foreigners voluntarily or forcibly serving with them. Some 12,000–14,000 POWs were in Mongolia, mainly engaged in construction around the capital, buildings for the government, university, opera, and a central library. Japanese were quickly assured that the Mongolians were not ill-inclined and treated them well in a poor country. Yet, 1,600 Japanese died, facing a severe climate and lacking customary food, with no way for Mongolia to provide quality medical care to so many. This was unlike the tens of thousands of US and Philippine POWs dying in 1942 in Japan’s Bataan march. Knowing in the fall of 1947 that Japanese released would face weeks of travel to Nakhodka, Mongols gave them winter clothes and food. In 1991, Tokyo asked to cremate the bodies of POWs and take the urns to Japan while leaving a memorial behind, before which the Emperor and Empress bowed deeply. This can only happen in Mongolia. Elsewhere in Asia, memories of Japanese soldiers are too unpleasant. Japan had political aims for the visit too, being a “political third neighbor” for Mongolia and serving as a balance, together with countries in the West, for nearby neighbors. Yet Mongolia hosted Putin in a celebration of the joint victory over Japanese militarists at Khalkin-Gol, and Western politicians complained since it participates in the “International Court of Justice” Rome Statute, which meant it was supposed to arrest him.

Abe visited in 2015 after Kaifu and Koizumi had visited. Kishida was supposed to visit but canceled over the threat of a strong earthquake in Japan, and, due to the prospect of his early resignation, it was untimely to go to a region so important to Japan. If earlier bilateral cooperation focused on economics and infrastructure, humanitarian in nature, lately, there are troubling signals that Japan is trying to weaken ties to Russia and China, offering security assistance as part of a new program to transfer military hardware through grants, including a February 2025 transfer, supposedly of a “peaceful character.” This may only be a trial balloon. Mongolia is the only landlocked state recipient, a sign of its special significance for a maritime power.

In RSMD, Oleg Paramonov noted that ground forces of the SDF on July 24 for the first time in history conducted missile drills directly from Japanese territory after having earlier done so in the US and Australia. Moscow tried through diplomatic channels to dissuade Japan from a provocative drill close to the Russian border in Habomai, as it has done with the deployment of missiles near the Senkaku Islands. Japan is also planning to develop rare metals at sea, using a unique technology to extract from a depth of 5,500 meters, which in 2028 would reduce dependence on China for rare-earth metals. It is importing Tomahawk missiles from the US with plans to produce its own long-range ones. The article lists new contracts for arms. Biden pressed for a strategic triangle, but Trump’s interest is unclear. He did not arrange a trilateral at the G7 in June. The new South Korean president earlier criticized the strategic triangle, but recently his rhetoric has changed. Economic tensions with the US and doubts about how Trump treats allies could strongly impact long-term military plans in Japan, as Japan rushes to build its “rocket muscles.”

On September 7 in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Vladimir Skosyrev reported on Ishiba’s decision to resign, arguing that no serious change in foreign policy will follow. Japan will continue to stick to the course of the European members of NATO. Ishiba explained that now that trade talks with the US have concluded, he can resign. The LDP needs smaller parties to pass legislation, but the opposition parties do not agree with each other. The internal crisis in the LDP is so severe that almost all higher-ranked officials have decided to join Ishiba in leaving their posts. According to Valerii Kistanov, Ishiba takes the blame for losing elections, leaving the LDP and its partners in a minority, and is seen as having unsuccessfully conducted talks with Trump on tariffs. The agreement is not on paper, leaving unclear how Japan will invest $550 billion in exchange for lowered tariffs, while Trump is raising the amount to be paid for US troops in Japan and military expenses, 5% of GDP instead of the 2% decision by 2027, already seen as a heavy burden. Complicating Ishiba’s domestic policy was strong opposition from the faction formed by Abe. Possible successors are Koizumi Shinjiro and Takaichi Sanae, who hold extreme rightist views. Abe tried to find a compromise with Russia, but his successors refrained from that. Since 2022 Japanese have resorted to severe sanctions and anti-Russian propaganda coordinated with NATO, the EU, and the G7. Even Trump’s efforts to peacefully regulate the crisis in Ukraine through some concessions from Kiev have drawn criticism from Japan’s ruling circles, readers are told.

On August 20, Iuri Paniev in Nezavisimaya Gazeta focused on Japan’s import of rare-earth materials from Africa, noting the August 20 Tokyo International Conference on the Development of Africa, a format started in 1993. In these 54 countries, about 300 Japanese companies are present, competing with China’s BRI and seeking influence in the Global South. In the past year, Japan has reached an agreement with Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo on critical minerals and transport routes, including one from Zambia to Nakada into Mozambique as part of competition with China. Japan also plans to prepare 30,000 African specialists in artificial intelligence, easing the entry of its companies into Africa. Trump’s tariff wars are an important driving force. It remains unknown if Africa will respond, but Ishiba is counting on success.

Japan-South Korea Relations

On August 25, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Valerii Kistanov wrote that Trump is helping Tokyo and Seoul to draw closer in opposition to his pressure. He called the visit of Lee Jae-myung to Tokyo notable, coming before the habitual first trip to Washington and timed to the 80th anniversary of the end of imperial Japan’s colonial rule over the peninsula, as well as the 60th anniversary of diplomatic normalization. Severe problems have lingered from the occupation, hampering relations, although ties somewhat improved under what many South Koreans considered to be the pro-Japanese course of Yoon Suk-yeol. In contrast, Lee was considered to be inclined against Japan prior to taking office, raising great alarm in Tokyo. For the first time in 17 years, a written agreement from the talks was posted, promising stable bilateral relations oriented to the future in economic ties, security, and in accordance with the triangular Camp David accord. It would be no exaggeration to say that, in the main, Trump facilitated this result, ironically reaching the same goal as Biden through different means, owing to his pressure. It was no accident that the dual Lee summits in Tokyo and Washington came after both allies had reached a deal with Trump on tariffs and investment and still faced pressure on their defense budgets and payments for US bases, as both fear the US will pull back from its security obligations in the face of China and North Korea as well as the defense cooperation of North Korea and Russia and the conflict in Ukraine. Lee and Ishiba could, in response to Trump’s tariffs, discuss reviving talks long at a dead-end on creating a three-way FTA in Northeast Asia with China and on the potential entry of South Korea into CPTPP. On September 8, after a long interruption, talks between defense ministers will resume, expected to focus on security versus North Korea and its missile and military alliance with Russia.

Viktor Zhdanov in RIA Novosti warned those who dispute the results of WWII, saying Moscow was promised something completely different and pointing to Japan for its efforts to take Russia’s Southern Kuril Islands. Despite Japan’s February 7 protests on the anniversary of the 1855 territorial agreement, that treaty long ago lost force with the Potsdam Declaration of 1945. When Russian forces took the islands, nobody complained. Japan held them for only 90 years, while Russia had them earlier for a longer period, the article insists. In 1956, Khrushchev agreed to give up two islands for the sake of a peace agreement on the condition of Japan’s neutrality. The 1960 Japan-US security treaty annulled that proposal. The Kuril Islands are very important for Russia’s security. Any Japanese call for the islands cannot be perceived as anything but a reexamination of the results of WWII. On March 21, 2022, Moscow rejected the possibility of talks over a peace agreement, ended visa-free visits of Japanese to the Southern Kurils, and pulled out of dialogue on joint economic activity on the islands. According to Kistanov, relations are at the lowest level of the entire postwar period.

Ol’ga Dobrinskaya in Izvestiya on August 6 reminded readers that Japan treated possession of its own nuclear weapons as a taboo topic. Japan’s “nuclear allergy” was part of its postwar identity. The memory of the August 6 and 9 nuclear bombs dropped on its cities was powerful and sustained by social organizations, one of which received the Nobel Prize in 2024. At the same time, Japanese appeals for nuclear disarmament in international platforms were not reflected in policies to secure Japan, continuing to be under the US “nuclear umbrella.” Its bitter historical experience did not lead to anti-American attitudes. Instead, trust and sympathy are expressed in surveys. In textbooks on history, silence prevails on the concrete participants in the bombing, and the level of awareness is lower than one might expect, e.g., on the dates of the bombing. Over time, activities of the hibakusha victims have subsided, as their numbers have fallen below 100,000 and their average age has reached 86. Despite a gradual reduction in the number of Americans who approve of the bombings (31% versus 35% disapproval), little sense of guilt is aroused. Obama was the first president to visit Hiroshima, but he did not apologize. When Trump in June equated the attack on Iran with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the war’s end, this sounded like approval of them, and Japan’s central government made no commentary. Naturally, military, political, and economic interests will prevail over historical memory.

Russia-South Korea Relations

G. V. Zinov’ev, ambassador to the Republic of Korea, said in an interview in Koreevedenie that he hears from Russian ambassadors to Western countries that things are not at all easy for them, but he experiences no discomfort, and there are no limits on his work. There has been no cooling of contacts or relations despite the unfavorable information environment due to reliance on Western mass media. Koreans in Russia, he thinks, are also comfortable, reflecting the friendly feelings that exist, even if ties along official lines are interrupted. Against the background of US tariffs on South Korea, the probability of economic cooperation exists. It would gain a lot. Many Korean firms have paid a heavy price. He thinks that South Korea is inclined and very eager to boost economic ties, depending on the state of the Ukraine crisis and Russia-US relations. Air traffic and dialogue need not wait. Korean textbooks ignore the role of the Soviet Union in the victory in 1945, while interest in the Korean War is much greater.