The FSB detained a Japanese journalist in Sakhalin, accusing him of collecting information about Russia’s defense capabilities

A journalist with the Japanese publication Hokkaido Shimbun was detained on Tuesday, October 13, on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East on suspicion of espionage. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims that he collected information about the country’s defense capabilities at the request of Japanese intelligence services.

According to an FSB statement, the information was to be used against the security of the Russian state. The official TASS news agency reported that the journalist was accredited to a Russian Foreign Ministry structure in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the administrative center of the Sakhalin Region. Moscow accuses him of acting on behalf of one of Japan’s special services.

The detention comes amid tense relations between Russia and Japan. The two countries dispute four islands in the Kuril archipelago—Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai group—occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945 and claimed by Tokyo. Russia calls them the Southern Kurils, while Japan considers them the Northern Territories.

Tensions have increased following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the military rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. In August 2026, Vladimir Putin visited the islands for the first time, a move denounced by Tokyo as “absolutely unacceptable.” Joint Russian-Chinese military exercises near Japan have, in turn, led to the frequent scrambling of Japanese interceptor aircraft.