correction: The Kuril islands were part of imperial Russia ; they were lost to Japan during the Russo-Japanese war. They were regained at the end of WWII. The Soviet Union did not need to the U.S blessing to take back the Kuril Islands! The reason why the U.S had agreed the return of Kuril Island to the Soviet Union after USSR agreed to liberate Manchuria from Japan is because the Soviet Union was getting back what imperial Russia had lost to Japan 50 years earlier. The reporter should have conducted little research on the history of this Islands before falsely asserting the Soviet Union got these Islands because the U.S was “always the Third Party” to the dispute over the Kuril Islands. What was the role of the U.S during the Russo-Japanese war- in which time the imperial Russia lost these Islands to Japan?

"The first Russo-Japanese agreement to deal with the status of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda which first established official relations between Russia and Japan. Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimoda, which provided for an agreement on borders, states "Henceforth the boundary between the two nations shall lie between the islands of Etorofu and Uruppu. The whole of Etorofu shall belong to Japan; and the Kurile Islands, lying to the north of and including Uruppu, shall belong to Russia." The islands of Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, that all lie to the south of Etorofu, are not explicitly mentioned in the treaty and were understood at the time to be a non-disputed part of Japan. The treaty also specified that the island of Sakhalin/Karafuto was not to be partitioned but was to remain under a joint Russo-Japanese condominium. In a subsequent 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg Russia and Japan agreed that Japan would give up all rights to Sakhalin in exchange for Russia giving up all rights to the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan."

Moscow should give the Island Free trade status and tax haven, for example Cayman Island. To encourage more Russian to settle on the Island. At this time with high tax rate many Russian company are setting up office aboard to avoid tax, how about attracting them to Kurils.