Russia, locked in a decades-old territorial dispute with Tokyo over a chain of Pacific islands, on Tuesday accused Japan of engaging in Russophobia and mounting "vicious attacks" over the war in Ukraine.
Soviet troops seized the islands off the northern coast of Japan at the very end of World War Two. The unresolved clash over who has sovereignty over the chain - known in Russia as the Kuril Islands and in Japan as the Northern Territories - has prevented the two sides from signing a formal peace treaty.
