STOCKSHOTS: The disputed Kuril islands The leaders of Japan and Russia will hold crunch summit talks in Moscow on Tuesday, with the two countries locked in an undiplomatic war of words over a set of disputed islands. The Kuril islands, off the northern coast of Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, are known as the southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan. STOCKSHOTS of the Kuril islands which were invaded by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.