Russia plans to build a military base on the Kurile islands, a group of Pacific islands it seized from Japan at the end of World War Two, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday, according to the Interfax news agency.
The move is likely to worsen already frayed relations with Tokyo which lays claim to the Southern Kuriles, known in Japan as the Northern Territories. The dispute is so acrimonious that Moscow and Tokyo have still not signed a formal peace treaty after the war.
