For Japanese fishing town of Nemuro, Moscow holds key to survival

Signs demanding the return of a group of islands, called the Northern Territories in Japanese and the Kuril Islands in Russian, are displayed at Hanasaki Port, in Nemuro on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido April 12, 2022. Picture taken April 12, 2022. REUTERS/Daniel Leussink

Japanese fisherman Tsuruyuki Hansaku was barely out of high school when he served 10 months in a Soviet prison, arrested at sea on his father's boat for catching cod in what the Russians considered their territory.

The silver-maned resident of the northern Japanese fishing town of Nemuro, now 79, is still on edge because of the sway Moscow has over the fortunes of his family fisheries business, and of his hometown.