{"id":13669,"date":"2026-08-13T14:07:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=13669"},"modified":"2026-08-13T14:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T09:00:19","slug":"kuril-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/kuril-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Kuril Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Kuril Islands Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the disputed Kuril Islands for the first time, travelling to Iturup as Moscow&#8217;s relations with Japan remain deeply strained over Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Kuril Islands<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Kuril Islands is an island group in the <\/span><b>Russian Far East<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that forms the <\/span><b>boundary between <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the <\/span><b>Pacific Ocean <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the<\/span><b> Sea of Okhotsk.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The archipelago, <\/span><b>administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast (Russia), extends <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for about 1,300 kilometers from the <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/kamchatka-peninsula\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kamchatka Peninsula<\/a>\u2019s (Russia) southern tip to Hokkaido\u2019s (Japan) northeastern corner.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The archipelago comprises <\/span><b>56 islands <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and several islets and rocks and covers over 15,600 sq.km.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The islands are divided into the Greater and Lesser Kuril Chains and have a total population of over 20,000 people.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are part of the <\/span><b>Pacific Ring of Fire<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> belt and have <\/span><b>over 100 volcanoes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, of which <\/span><b>35 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are said to be <\/span><b>active volcanoes <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">along with hot springs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>climate <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the islands is <\/span><b>severe<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with<\/span><b> long, cold, snowy winters<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and<\/span><b> cool, wet, foggy summers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Vegetation <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ranges from<\/span><b> tundra on the northern islands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to <\/span><b>dense forest on the larger southern islands.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>p<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rincipal centers<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are the <\/span><b>towns of Kurilsk on Iturup, the largest island,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Severo-Kurilsk on Paramushir, and Yuzhno-Kurilsk on Kunashir.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although <\/span><b>Russia administers all the Kuril Islands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, some islands are at the heart of the Russo-Japanese feud known as the Kuril Islands dispute.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Japan considers <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the <\/span><b>four southernmost islands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as <\/span><b>part of its Northern Territories.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tokyo claims that the disputed islands have been part of Japan since the early 19th century.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>As a result of this dispute, Russia and Japan have never formally concluded<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a <\/span><b>peace treaty to end <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/world-war-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">World War II<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/world\/rest-of-world\/why-putins-first-kuril-islands-visit-matters-as-russia-japan-ties-hit-new-low\/articleshow\/133198569.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TOI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kuril Islands is an island group in the Russian Far East that forms the boundary between the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk. Read more about Kuril Islands, Location, Vegetation, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":118965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9529,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-13669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-kuril-islands","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13669"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118985,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13669\/revisions\/118985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}