• Medvedev also said Japan will become unable to gain oil and gas from Russia

TOKYO: Former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday Japan will be kicked out of the Sakhalin-2 oil and natural gas development project in the Russian Far East if a cap on the price of Russian oil, proposed by Japan, is introduced.

In a comment posted online, Medvedev also said Japan will become unable to gain oil and gas from Russia.

His remarks came after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, during a stump speech in Tokyo on Sunday, revealed a plan to create an international mechanism that sets an upper limit on the international community’s purchase prices for Russian oil at around half of its current level.

Medvedev said such a mechanism would lead to significant declines in the amount of oil available in the market and sharply push up the price.

The same day, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev, one of the closest aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Japan is strengthening its revanchist stance over four northwestern Pacific islands at the center of the two nations’ long-standing territorial dispute.

He made the remarks at a meeting in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, according to Russia’s state-owned ITAR-Tass news agency.

Patrushev was quoted as saying that the United States and its allies are “increasing their military presence in the Arctic and Asia-Pacific regions and activating Japan’s revanchist aspirations with regards to the Kuril Islands by means of creating new military blocs.”

The four Russian-controlled islands, located off the eastern coast of the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido, are called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia.

Russia has harshly reacted to Japan’s sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine imposed jointly with the United States and major European countries.

In March, Russia declared a halt to its talks with Japan to resolve the territorial dispute and conclude a World War II peace treaty.

On Thursday, Putin signed a presidential decree to transfer rights to the Sakhalin-2 project to a new Russian company, making it uncertain whether participating Japanese firms can keep their stakes in the project.

JIJI Press