According to a new video shared on social media, President Vladimir Putin told his country’s schoolchildren that Russia, not Japan, is actually the “Land of the Rising Sun.”

“As for our Japanese neighbors, Japan is called the ‘Land of the Rising Sun,’ but further east of Japan, I think, is Kamchatka or (the island of) Sakhalin, and even further east is New Zealand,” Putin told the students. Russians

“And even further to the east of New Zealand is Chukotka! So, the channel [Bering] it is only 60 kilometers, and then there is the American continent. In this sense, Russia is the “Land of the Rising Sun,” concluded the head of the Kremlin.

It is not known whether this meeting with the students also took place on September 1, when Russia celebrated “Knowledge Day” and Putin traveled to the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania, where the Kremlin held a separate meeting with students from a local school.

The President of Russia told the schoolchildren about the alleged conversation with the Minister of Education of Russia Sergey Kravtsov, who told him that in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, children did not even know about the existence of the Crimean bridge and believed that it was not true.

“So!” – shouted Putin cheerfully, before declaring that the Ukrainian students did not even know that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.

During the same visit to Kaliningrad, the head of the Kremlin named the new object of the “special military operation” in Ukraine and did a small photo exercise, stopping the accompanying official motorcade to chat with people on the side for 10 seconds. road.

Tensions between Russia and Japan

Vladimir Putin’s comments about the true Land of the Rising Sun came amid unprecedented tensions between Moscow and Tokyo since the end of World War II as Japan largely agreed to Western sanctions against the Russian economy.

In late June, Russia’s ambassador to Japan, Mykhailo Galuzin, condemned the sanctions adopted by Tokyo, saying they were “short-sighted” and would mainly affect the business environment.

“Of course, such a strengthening of hostile policy towards Russia will be taken into account by us in our future approach to Japan and will not remain unanswered,” Galuzin said.

In mid-July, Russia announced it was imposing sanctions on 384 Japanese lawmakers, barring them from entering its territory, after it decided to expel several Japanese diplomats in late April in response to a similar move by Tokyo.

Also, on August 20, the Japanese parliament approved the cancellation of the “most favored nation” provision granted to Russia. As a result of this decision, Russia lost the advantages of tariffs and trade barriers in Japan.

Japan claims the Kuril Islands, occupied by Stalin’s army

Russian television also warned that Russia could be attacked by Japan, which, as in World War II, would join forces with Germany to attack the country under the leadership of Vladimir Putin in two parts. But it is worth remembering that Japan never attacked Russia in the Second World War, the two sides signed a non-aggression pact.

The treaty was violated by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the final days of the war, when he ordered his troops to invade Manchuria, one of the Asian regions of the Japanese Empire.

Much of the tension between Russia and Japan stems from the events following World War II. Tokyo and Moscow have never signed a peace treaty, and Japan considers the Kuril Islands between the two countries to be Japanese territory illegally occupied by Russia.

Japan’s defense ministry announced in late August that it had requested a record budget for its armed forces amid these tensions, as well as China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea.

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