• Russia has deployed its Bastion coastal missile defence system to a remote part of the Kuril Island chain in the Pacific near Japan.

• The Bastion systems were moved to Matua, a deserted volcanic island in the central part of the Kuril Islands chain. The Bastion is capable of hitting sea targets at a range of up to 500 kilometres.

• Russia used large landing ships to deliver equipment and personnel to the Matua island.

• Russia is trying to beef up its military infrastructure on the island chain.

What is the dispute about?

• Japan asserts territorial rights to the four southernmost islands of the Kuril chain and calls them Northern Territories.

• The Soviet Union took the islands in the final days of World War II, and the dispute has kept the countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their hostilities.

• The oval-shaped, 11-kilometre-long island where the Russian missiles were deployed hosted a Japanese military base during World War II.

• After the Soviet takeover of the Kuril Islands, Matua was home to a Soviet military base that was closed amid funding shortages in the wake of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

• The move is intended to underline Moscow’s firm stance in the dispute.

• Russia’s defence ministry said the deployment involved setting up living quarters for personnel, hangars for the vehicles and other infrastructure.

• The deployment followed a series of moves by Russia to beef up its military presence on the Kuril Islands.

• In 2016, it stationed the Bal and the Bastion coastal defense missile systems on two of the four southernmost Kuril Islands.

• In the following years, it followed up by sending top-of-the-line air defence missiles systems there and setting up an air base on the Iturup Island where fighter jets were deployed.

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