There is an old observation about Russian strategic thinking: "Russians play chess. When they move pawns it doesn't mean that's what they are moving." The remark, made by a Moscow-based businessman discussing the difficulties of interpreting Russian behaviour, was intended as advice to Westerners not to take individual developments at face value. Whether or not the stereotype is fair, it is an appropriate warning when looking at Vladimir Putin's sudden appearance on the Kuril Islands.
Putin's visit to Iturup on 13 August was his first to the disputed Southern Kurils. Japan regards Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai islets as its Northern Territories; Russia has controlled them since the final days of the Second World War. Tokyo immediately protested the visit, which came just two days before Japan's annual commemoration of the end of the Pacific War.
It is an immutable law of politics; you know you're on your way out when people start saying nice things about you. Keir Starmer's appearance at the NATO Summit 7-8th July in Ankara was marked only by the silence of any significant comments about the UK by Donald Trump. He reserved his ire for the Spanish. Everybody was too polite to tell Keir Starmer that he was naked. Aneurin Bevan made a memorable speech to the Labour Party conference in 1957 opposing a motion to back unilateral nuclear disarmament. He warned that by removing what leverage the UK government had in the international arena, it would be like sending the Foreign Secretary 'naked into the conference chamber'.
