Russia Gives Names to Uninhabited Northwestern Pacific Islands

(An earlier version of this article improperly described islands in the northwestern Pacific) Russia Gives Names to Uninhabited Northwestern Pacific Islands Tokyo, Oct. 20 (Jiji Press)–The Russian government has given names to two uninhabited islands, part of northwestern Pacific islands controlled by Moscow and claimed by Tokyo, Russia’s state-run Tass news agency said on Saturday. The uninhabited islands, totaling around 2.2 hectares, were named after two historical Russian Orthodox Church missionaries, Saint Nikolay Kasatkin and Saint Innocent Veniaminov. Kasatkin is known in Japan for establishing the Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo, the main cathedral of the Orthodox Church in Japan. The two uninhabited islands are part of the four northwestern Pacific islands that Soviet troops seized from Japan in the closing days of World War II. They are collectively called the Northern Territories in Japan. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]