In 65 years, no Soviet or Russian leader bothered to visit four disputed islands north of Japan, called the Kuril Islands by Russia and the Northern Territories by the Japanese.
But on Monday, Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, en route from a summit in Hanoi to Moscow, spent four hours touring one of the islands, inspecting a fish-packing plant and making the customary promises of more federal money and less bureaucracy before flying off again.
The otherwise innocuous visit raised a storm of protest from the Japanese. Tokyo claims the islands, which were conquered by the Red Army in the closing stages of the second world war, are Japanese.
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