“In 1945, two days after America bombed Hiroshima, Joseph Stalin declared war on Japan and Soviet troops attacked Japanese-held territory.

They grabbed the southern Kuril islands, even though Russia had acknowledged them as Japanese since 1855.

For two years the islanders lived alongside the occupiers.

A touching photograph in an exhibition in Nemuro shows Russians and Japanese enjoying a game of go.

Japanese women helped deliver Russian babies.

Then, suddenly, the fraternising was over. By 1949 all the islanders had been deported.” (The Economist, 2019, p.32).

Reference

The Economist. (2019) Banyan: Frozen Conflict. The Economist. 09 February 2019, pp.32.