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A road worker at a military facility on Iturup Island. Russia creates a new base of the Pacific Fleet in the Kuril Islands

A road worker at a military facility on Iturup Island. Russia creates a new base of the Pacific Fleet in the Kuril Islands

29.06.2022

Image copyright AFP Image caption In 2010, the then President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev visited the Kuriles

Frants Klintsevich, Deputy Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of the Federation Council, announced the construction of a naval base in the Kuriles. This is not the first mention of a military facility on the islands, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke about this earlier, but for the first time they started talking about this project in the present tense.

"The decision has been made. It is under implementation," Klintsevich said, without specifying exactly where the military facility would be located.

Perhaps he had in mind the island of Matua - a small piece of land in the center of the Kuril chain. In 2016, Defense Minister Shoigu said that Russia intended not only to restore, but also to actively exploit this island.

By that time, a large Russian expedition had already visited the island. geographical society and the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet). The second expedition began in the summer of 2017 and continues to this day.

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"Specialists conducted more than 1,000 laboratory studies on physical, chemical and biological indicators, made more than 200 measurements of the relief and the external environment. Radiation and chemical reconnaissance was also carried out, the fortifications of the island and more than 100 historical objects were examined. Divers carried out work on a hydrographic study of bays and bays of the island of Matua," the RGS website says.

Image copyright Google Image caption Perhaps the naval base will be located on the island of Matua

The reports of the expeditions talk a lot about the study of marine invertebrates and algae, the study of the activity of the Sarychev Peak volcano, but if the Ministry of Defense is really going to build a base on this island, then hydrographic studies of the relief of the seabed and the study of the remains of Japanese military installations are most likely especially important for it. .

The new base will be able to receive any ships, including the first rank, Klintsevich said on Thursday, without specifying which ships will be based at this facility.

The ships of the first rank include aircraft carriers, destroyers, missile and anti-submarine cruisers, and nuclear submarines. For such deep draft boats, it is really necessary to carefully prepare the seabed.

The ownership of some of the Kuril Islands by Russia is disputed by Japan. They went to the Soviet Union at the very end of World War II, when Soviet amphibious assaults landed on the islands. The ownership of some of the islands was not secured by international treaties.

Japan claims the Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan islands of the Kuril ridge and a group of small Habomai islands, referring to the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1855. The island of Matua, which Shoigu spoke about, does not belong to the disputable group - it is located in another part of the ridge, in its central region.

Russia insists that the islands belong to it, referring to the inadmissibility of revising the results of World War II.

Island as base

The Kuril Islands are located in a strategically important area: they separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean, as if blocking access to it from the southern coast of the Russian Far East.

During the Second World War, a powerful system of fortifications, airfields, and naval bases was built on the islands. One of the objects was located just on Matua - there are still coastal concrete fortifications on the island, the remains of an airfield, warehouses, shelters.

Image copyright Google Image caption There are traces of Japanese field fortifications on Matua.

In Soviet times and until 2001, there was a frontier post on the island, but in recent years the island has remained uninhabited.

At present, the 18th Machine-Gun Artillery Division (the only such unit in the Russian army) is deployed on the Kuril Islands with reinforcement units on Iturup and Kunashir. Recently, coastal missile systems "Bal" and "Bastion", as well as anti-aircraft systems "Buk" were placed on the islands. The Bastion complex was located on the island of Iturup, and the Bal complex was located on Kunashir.

Matua is not the most comfortable place to live and even to build a military base. Strong winds blow on the island, there are no large convenient bays on the coast. Finally, the entire northern part of the small island is a volcano that last erupted quite recently - in 2009.

The island is located at a great distance from supply bases, and communication with it, especially during the winter months, is difficult due to the fact that the Sea of Okhotsk freezes in this place.

Image copyright NASA Image caption Eruption of the Sarychev Peak volcano on the island of Matua in 2009

In any case, building a large base on it will be extremely costly.

However, Russia seems ready to spend. On the one hand, the Kremlin has long sought to expand its military presence in the oceans. And the Pacific region, which has attracted more and more attention in recent years, is extremely important for Russia.

For example, one of the two landing helicopter carriers that Russia intended to purchase from France was to be based in the Pacific Fleet.

"When I served in the Far East, the issue of deploying a ship formation of the Pacific Fleet in the Kuril Islands was considered. It is advantageous to create a base on the islands for the sole reason - direct access to the ocean. Of the places that were identified as suitable for it by geometry, the difficulties were as follows. First - difficult ice conditions in winter. The second is high and low tides of about six meters. The third is strong winds," Admiral Vladimir Valuev, former commander of the Baltic Fleet, said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

In the days of the USSR, which had a larger Pacific Fleet than Russia now, there was a large military base was never built.

Russia's second goal is to gain a foothold on the Kuril Islands themselves. The unresolved issue with the Kuril Islands hinders the development of relations between the two countries, each time Moscow and Tokyo raise it and obviously greatly unnerves both sides.

What base can Russia afford?

Speaking about the scale of the future facility, Senator Franz Klintsevich said that the new base will be able to receive any ships, including the first rank.

At the same time, Klintsevich used the word "base", that is, he meant a rather large object, which should include not only berths, but also infrastructure for the maintenance of ships, ideally a dock and a shipyard, barracks for crew accommodation and base personnel, air defense units and the airfield.

And all this - on an island with an area of 52 square kilometers, a significant part of which is occupied by a volcano.

Tartus: the "gas station" that dreams of becoming a base

Vasily Kashin, a senior researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, told the BBC that as a result, only a small ship logistics center could appear on Matua, in Syria, and Russia would invest money in the already existing bases of the Pacific fleet.

There are five of them in the Far East - in Vladivostok, Fokino, Vilyuchinsk (nuclear submarines are based there), Sovetskaya Gavan and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

“Maybe it will be a harbor where there will be several piers, again we don’t know how many; there will be an icebreaker and a couple of tugboats, and some small forces will be constantly deployed,” he said.

At the same time, Kashin noted that even if, for example, a large anti-submarine ship (of the first rank) can approach the island, it remains to be seen how many such ships can be serviced there at the same time and how much service they can receive there.

The Russian Armed Forces, aware of the strategic importance of the Kuril Islands, by the end of last year completed the modernization of military facilities on two of them - Kunashir and Iturup, and this year they plan to create modern military bases on two more - Matua Island in their central part, and in the north - Paramushir island.

In the context of a serious deterioration in Russian-American relations in order to protect the Sea of Okhotsk, as a stronghold of nuclear confrontation with the United States, military construction on the Kuril Islands is of paramount importance. Russian President Vladimir Putin also takes into account the conditions for the return of the "northern territories" in the context of ensuring the country's national security, which, in turn, raises barriers to solving the territorial problem,

Restoration work at military bases in Kunashir and Iturup

According to the press organ of the Russian Pacific Fleet, in November 2016, a modern Bastion missile system of the ground-to-surface class with a range of 300 kilometers was deployed on Iturup, and a new ball missile system of the ground-to-surface class was deployed on Kunashir Island. ”, with a flight range of 130 kilometers.

According to experts, both missile systems are effective in destroying large surface targets, such as, for example, US Navy aircraft carriers. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the "northern territories" there was a renewal of weapons.

There is no doubt that this new deployment of weapons, a month before Vladimir Putin's official visit to Japan, became an element of influence on our country, but it could also be a way for the Russian military to put pressure on their president so that he would not make territorial concessions.

Both in Kunashir, where all resources have already been fully utilized, and in Iturup, where military installations have already been restored, last year everything has already taken on a finished look. As Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced in December 2015, it was not only about restoring the military base on Kunashir and other islands, but also about the parallel construction of a total of 392 infrastructure facilities, including schools, leisure centers, shops, and so on.

The Russian military garrison on Iturup is located near two villages - Goryachiy Klyuch and Gorlovka on the Pacific coast. After the reduction in its number, which followed the collapse of the USSR and the earthquake in 1994, the equipment became obsolete, part of it depreciated.

The military opposes the transfer of land to the population

Defense Minister Shoigu said in February 2017: “The Russian army will complete the deployment of three new divisions on the Western and Southern borders, as well as in the Eastern part of the country in 2017. We are actively working to protect the Kuriles. Here we will also deploy one division.” This means that another new division was to appear on the Kuril Islands within a year.

Context

On the Kuril Islands - one owner

Yahoo News Japan 11/01/2017

Bastion vs Aegis Ashore

Asahi Shimbun 12/12/2017

Japan will invite Putin to discuss the Kuriles?

Japan Today 09.01.2018

Putin did not forget to muddy the waters

Sankei Shimbun 09/20/2017

Kuril Islands: installment purchase

The American Interest 05/17/2017 At the moment, the 18th machine gun and artillery division is located on Iturup, the 46th machine gun and artillery regiment is on Kunashir, the number of troops on Iturup is three thousand people, on Kunashir - 500 people. During Putin's presidency, a military reform was carried out, in which, based on the importance of rapid deployment, the emphasis was not on divisions, but on more mobile units - brigades and regiments.

And although the troops stationed on Iturup make up the size of a division, on the whole, the brigade becomes the unit of the number of troops. The details are not yet clear, for example, the "one division" mentioned by the Minister of Defense - whether it will be a completely new one, or whether it is a question of reforming an already existing division. But given the difficulties of conscription, it is unlikely that we are talking about another completely new division. In any case, there is no information yet that another new division has appeared on the Kuril Islands.

Last year, as one of the measures to develop the underpopulated Far East, the Russian government adopted the Far Eastern Hectare program to rent the vacant land here to anyone, but, as far as I know, this plan has been suspended in the Kuril Islands for the time being. Renting land in mountainous terrain is hardly realistic, and the Department of Defense is against it, believing that private ownership of land is undesirable to protect military secrets.

Military bases in the center and north of the Kuril Islands

On the other hand, the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported on November 29 that, according to information received from sources of the General Staff, for the further deployment of surface-to-surface missiles, the construction of military bases on the islands of Matua and Paramushir begins. The deployment of Bal and Bastion missile systems similar to those already on Kunashir and Iturup is scheduled for the two islands as early as 2018.

The newspaper also reported that experts from the Ministry of Defense have already visited two islands in order to determine a specific location for the arrangement of military bases and deployment of missiles. The deployment of modern missile systems in this area will not only strengthen the defense potential in the middle and northern parts of the Kuriles, but will also assist Kamchatka, where the base of strategic nuclear submarines is located.

During World War II, Matua and Paramushir played an important role in the battles between the Imperial Japanese Army and the United States; there was a numerous garrison, strongholds, and military ports here. Apparently, Russia plans to restore these fortifications and use them as the basis for modern naval and air bases.

Military expert Alexander Mostovoy told Izvestia that "the Kuril military bases not only strengthen the defense potential of the islands themselves, but also prevent the direct penetration of US aircraft carriers into the Sea of Okhotsk and Primorye." “The old Japanese Imperial Army was well aware of the strategic importance of the Kuriles and during the Second World War had bases and airfields on the islands of Matua and Paramushir. Some of them were used after the war by the USSR, and if the international situation worsens now, it is planned to actively use them as well,” the expert noted.

However, in winter, strong winds blow on the islands, the sea around them freezes. Strong tides lead to sudden changes in depth, which makes it difficult to supply resources and food to the coast. Although up to two thousand people lived on Paramushir, on the uninhabited Matua there is active volcano, which has erupted several times in the past. As Mostovoy noted in his interview, “military construction on islands remote from the mainland is an extremely difficult task. There are also high costs involved. Only border guards are needed here.”

Creation of a new Arctic brigade

Recently, the Russian military has been actively preparing to increase its presence in such remote areas as the Far East and the Arctic. For the Arctic, a special Arctic brigade is being created in the amount of two thousand people. In 2017, the first 150 people of its strength are already deployed on Alexander Island, which is part of the Franz Josef Land archipelago.

To date, this is the largest detachment of builders working north of the 80th parallel. In conditions where, due to global warming, the area arctic ice is shrinking, Russia is thinking about military construction to ensure its own national interests in this area, a pantry of natural resources.

On top of that, the Russian military wants to locate a new naval base for the Pacific Fleet on the Chukotka Peninsula, across from American Alaska.

A series of such actions suggests geopolitical ambitions to increase armaments in the Kuril Islands-Chukotka-Arctic Circle arc.

Today, Russia is waging "two wars" in Ukraine and Syria, strengthening its positions from the Baltic Sea, opposing NATO's policy of containment towards Russia. In the south, also turbulent for Russia, it is dealing with China expanding its military capabilities, North Korea, which continues to develop a nuclear missile program, Central Asia and the Middle East.

The share of military spending has recently been 5% of GNP, which can already be considered a critical mark. Tax revenues are shrinking due to lower oil prices and sanctions imposed by the US and Europe, and there has been a reduction in the military budget since 2017. The regular army of Russia consists of almost 900 thousand people, which is adequately large territory, in addition, there are significant reserves.

Even if the planned military bases are built, Japan and the US will not be able to attack them, so this should be saved. You can do other things than deploy troops in the hard-to-reach Arctic and Far East, but as long as economic difficulties continue, there will be military expansion.

Improving international security as a condition for the return of territories

In parallel with the deployment of military forces in the Kuril Islands, President Putin began to express concern in the field of international security when discussing the problem of "northern territories". In December 2016, at a press conference during a visit to Japan, he said: “Russia has two large naval bases north of Vladivostok, on their way to the Pacific Ocean, our ships are forced to pass the South Kuriles, I want our Japanese friends understood this situation.

In June 2017, speaking to the largest international news agencies, Vladimir Putin said: “If the South Kuriles become Japanese territory, it becomes theoretically possible for the US military to come to them. I am not familiar with their bilateral agreement and its appendices. But there is such a possibility. Therefore, we need to work on easing tensions in the region as a whole, and only then will we find opportunities to conclude a serious and long-term agreement with Japan.”

Thus, the improvement of the situation in the field of international security was also named as a prerequisite for the conclusion of the Russian-Japanese peace treaty. This is the first time since the collapse of the USSR that Russia has set as a necessary condition an improvement in the international security situation.

As for the strengthening of military capabilities in the Kuriles, it was stated that “we are interested in our security, diverting threats away from our borders, the South Kuriles are important for this. I support military modernization here.”

And at the Vietnam-Danang meeting in November last year: “When concluding a Russian-Japanese peace treaty, we must take into account the Japanese-American security treaty, and the obligations that it imposes on Japan. In this sense, the security system existing between Japan and the United States "prevents the conclusion of a Russian-Japanese peace treaty."

As for the development of relations between Japan and Russia, in March 2017, for the first time in the last four years, Tokyo hosted a meeting in the 2 + 2 format of the diplomatic and military leaders of the two countries, in December, after a seven-year break, Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, visited Japan . While bilateral security dialogue continues, differences remain, such as US-Japanese missile defense cooperation and North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks to resolve the territorial issue from a position of strong leadership, President Putin approaches this issue from a global strategy with the United States.

The course of further negotiations is hampered by the fact that issues of international security are becoming a new obstacle to the conclusion of a peace treaty.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

Image copyright AFP

Image caption In 2010, the then President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev visited the Kuriles

"The decision has been made. It is under implementation," Klintsevich said, without specifying exactly where the military facility would be located.

By that time, a large expedition of the Russian Geographical Society and the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet) had already visited the island. The second expedition began in the summer of 2017 and continues to this day.

Russian senator: the decision on the naval base in the Kuril Islands has been made
Will Putin agree to the return of the Kuril Islands to Japan?
Japan regrets the deployment of Russian missiles in the Kuriles

Image copyright Google

Image caption Perhaps the naval base will be located on the island of Matua

The new base will be able to receive any ships, including the first rank, Klintsevich said on Thursday, without specifying which ships will be based at this facility.

Russia insists that the islands belong to it, referring to the inadmissibility of revising the results of World War II.

Island as base

The Kuril Islands are located in a strategically important area: they separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean, as if blocking access to it from the southern coast of the Russian Far East.

Image copyright Google

Image caption There are traces of Japanese field fortifications on Matua.

In Soviet times and until 2001, there was a frontier post on the island, but in recent years the island has remained uninhabited.

Image copyright NASA

Image caption Eruption of the Sarychev Peak volcano on the island of Matua in 2009

In any case, building a large base on it will be extremely costly.

For example, one of the two landing helicopter carriers that Russia intended to purchase from France was to be based in the Pacific Fleet.

In the days of the USSR, which had a larger Pacific Fleet than Russia now, a large military base was never built on the Kuril Islands.

What base can Russia afford?

Speaking about the scale of the future facility, Senator Franz Klintsevich said that the new base will be able to receive any ships, including the first rank.

And all this - on an island with an area of 52 square kilometers, a significant part of which is occupied by a volcano.

There are five of them in the Far East - in Vladivostok, Fokino, Vilyuchinsk (nuclear submarines are based there), Sovetskaya Gavan and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Ruslan Tsalikov / Photo: function.mil.ru

Yesterday, Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov and Director of Spetsstroy Alexander Volosov checked the construction of infrastructure facilities for military camps on the Iturup and Kunashir islands of the Kuril chain.

During the working trip, R. Tsalikov and A. Volosov inspected the construction sites of infrastructure facilities of the machine gun and artillery division stationed on the southern islands of the Kuril ridge.

“During the construction of new military camps, technological solutions are used that take into account the climatic and seismic features of the region of deployment”

The construction of military and social facilities on the islands of the Kuril chain has not been carried out since the late 1960s. At present, Spetsstroy of Russia in Kunashir and Iturup has launched a large-scale construction of two base military camps according to standard designs. Under the terms of state contracts, a phased construction of residential and barracks zones, a utility and warehouse zone and sectors of club and sports facilities is envisaged.

Next year, builders will have to complete reconstruction and new construction of more than 220 facilities, including more than 40 residential buildings and dormitories, 2 schools, 2 kindergartens, 2 universal sports complexes with a swimming pool, ice rinks, canteens, hospitals and clinics, shops, cafes, as well as combat training facilities and supporting infrastructure.

The commissioning of infrastructure facilities for military camps will be carried out in stages, as the launch complexes are ready. During the construction of new military camps, technological solutions are used that take into account the climatic and seismic features of the region of deployment.

Following the results of the trip, R. Tsalikov instructed to increase the pace of construction work and optimize the processes associated with the passage of state examinations. He recalled that the construction of military infrastructure facilities on the Kuril Islands is monitored weekly by the leadership of the military department during thematic conference calls at the National Defense Control Center.

Construction of military facilities / Photo: function.mil.ru

reference Information

Currently, more than 250 complex facilities are being built and reconstructed on the territory of the Central and Eastern Military Districts, including housing construction for 16.8 thousand apartments in Syzran, Vilyuchinsk, Engels, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Ulan-Ude and other cities.

In addition, in accordance with the plans for the development of the Armed Forces, more than 20 constituent entities of the Russian Federation are equipping the existing and building a new infrastructure for quartering troops, and active construction is underway in the Arctic zone.

The construction and arrangement of military camps is carried out according to standard projects using the technology of prefabricated steel structures and mobile shelters.

MOSCOW, Press Service and Information Department of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
2

The Japanese Foreign Ministry has already responded to this information, saying that Tokyo is "closely monitoring the movement of Russian troops" and is studying the issue of building a Russian Navy base in the Kuril Islands. So why would Russia need a base in the Kuril Islands, the appearance of which will certainly provoke discontent on the Japanese side, and where will it be located?

To begin with, from a military point of view, the Kuriles should be considered a strategic territory, if only because we still do not have a peace treaty on these borders with our closest neighbor Japan, and the islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and the Habomai archipelago Tokyo still considers its "northern territories". At the same time, the United States has its military installations on the territory of Japan itself.

In particular, the Japanese island of Okinawa is of great strategic importance for the United States. In fact, this is an outpost of the Pentagon in the Pacific Ocean. It deployed a whole network of military bases, training grounds and airfields. There is a US military air base Kadena, which plays an important role for the American presence in Southeast Asia. In addition, there are approximately 16,000 US Marines serving at Camp Hansen, Camp Schwab, and Camp Zookeran. In total, about 30,000 US troops are stationed in Okinawa - about half of the entire US military contingent in Japan.

Even if it is theoretically assumed that a potential enemy captures the Russian Kuriles, this immediately opens up for him a direct path to the entire territory of Russia from the Pacific Ocean. That is why in Soviet times the Kuriles were reliably protected by large groupings of troops. In particular, a powerful division of the Marine Corps was stationed there. But then, with the collapse of the Union, the number of troops in the Kuriles began to rapidly decrease. It was expensive to supply troops from the center, the authorities rarely got there for inspections, and numerous reformers preferred to “cut” and “optimize” rather than prove the need to strengthen the Far Eastern group. So, in fact, the current decision to create a naval base here is just a restoration of the "status quo" - the previously existing situation.

It is known that today the 18th machine gun and artillery division, numbering up to three and a half thousand people, is based in the Kuriles. It is well equipped with self-propelled artillery, air defense systems, rocket artillery and tanks. An attack from the sea on the island of Kunashir is capable of repelling the Bal complexes, and on the Iturup island - the Bastion complexes.

In addition to missile systems, coastal units are reinforced with Leer-3 universal highly automated systems, which include control stations and Orlan-10 drones, which can use various types of troops - from motorized riflemen and tankers to electronic warfare units.

However, according to the military, for the antiamphibious defense of the islands, as well as for a more tangible military presence of Russia in the area, especially given that the Japanese still claim them, it is still necessary to strengthen the naval grouping.

Now parts of the Pacific Fleet there are actually divided into two components - one is based in Vilyuchinsk, the other - in Vladivostok. "An intermediate base is absolutely necessary," said Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.

It is not yet clear which of the Kuril Islands will become the site for the deployment of a new military facility of the Russian fleet. But the military department has been thinking about this task for a long time. Our sailors have repeatedly carried out many months of expeditionary trips around the islands of the Great Kuril ridge with the aim (Sergey Shoigu himself told about this) to study the possibility of a promising basing of the forces of the Pacific Fleet.

In particular, a joint expedition of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society (by the way, like the military department, it is also headed by Sergei Shoigu) visited the island of Matua, which the Japanese used during World War II as a naval and air base.

Matua is an island in the middle of the Kuril chain, formed by volcanic activity. By the way, Japan does not claim it, which is important if we consider the island as a potential site for the base of the Russian Navy. From this point of view, Matua is very well located. There are still three runways left from the Japanese. And the participants of the joint expedition were very surprised when they found that, taking into account the wind rose, even the most modern aircraft can still land on these runways in almost any weather conditions.

According to a number of military experts, it is this island that is most likely to be considered as the location of the new Russian naval base.