title: Mellody Hobson

text: On October 8, 2020, Mellody Hobson and the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation made the lead gift to establish a new residential college at Princeton University. Hobson College will be the first residential college at Princeton named for a Black woman and will be built on the site of First College, formerly known as Wilson College.


title: Mellody Hobson

text: On June 7, 2022, Hobson joined the Walton-Penner group (consisting of S. Robson Walton, Greg Penner, Carrie Walton Penner, Condoleezza Rice, and Sir Lewis Hamilton) to purchase the Denver Broncos. On August 9, 2022, the NFL owners approved the purchase of the Denver Broncos by the Walton-Penner group.


title: Mellody Hobson

text: Hobson was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2018.


title: Mellody Hobson

text: Hobson began dating film director and producer George Lucas in 2006, after they met at a business conference. Hobson and Lucas announced their engagement in January 2013, and were married on June 22, 2013, at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. They have one daughter together, Everest Hobson Lucas, who was born via surrogacy in August 2013.


title: Mellody Hobson

text: She appeared on the "Jack Good Show" in August 2017, where she accepted the City of Birmingham's deepest appreciation for her charitable work with Birmingham's Bright Leaders of Tomorrow.


title: A Different World

text: A Different World is an American sitcom (and a spin-off of "The Cosby Show") television series that aired for six seasons on NBC from September 24, 1987 to July 9, 1993. The series originally centered on Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet) and the life of students at Hillman College, a fictional historically black college in Virginia. It was inspired by student life at historically black colleges and universities.


title: A Different World

text: After Bonet's departure in the first season, the remainder of the series primarily focused more on Southern belle Whitley Gilbert-Wayne (Jasmine Guy) and math whiz Dwayne Cleophus Wayne (Kadeem Hardison).


title: A Different World

text: While it was a spin-off from "The Cosby Show", "A Different World" typically addressed issues that were avoided by "The Cosby Show" writers (race and class relations, sexual assault, or the Equal Rights Amendment). One episode that aired in 1990 was one of the first American network television episodes to address the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS.


title: A Different World

text: The original premise was to focus on a white student at a historically black university and feature Lena Horne as an acting teacher, but in production, the premise changed from being a story about a white student in a black college to a black student (Denise Huxtable) in a black college with a white friend. It was ultimately decided that Denise, who was of college age, would be spun off and have a white roommate in order to show the dynamic of a white girl in predominantly black surroundings.


title: A Different World

text: Meg Ryan was originally cast for this role, but she decided to pursue a film career, so Marisa Tomei was cast. The first season of Hillman's student body consisted of both black and white students in equal numbers, but this was changed at the beginning of the second season and a predominantly black student body maintained until the series ended.


title: A Different World

text: After the first season, it came to Cosby's and the producers' attention that the series was not accurately portraying a historically black college and life on campus, so Debbie Allen, an alumna of Howard University, was hired as the chief creative force to revamp the show. During the summer of 1988, Lisa Bonet announced that she and husband Lenny Kravitz were having a baby. Allen was in favor of having a young pregnant student in the show, but Cosby said that Lisa Bonet could be pregnant but not Denise Huxtable.


title: A Different World

text: It was felt that viewers would not accept Denise as an unwed mother, having grown to know her as a "good girl" after four seasons of "The Cosby Show". Thus it was decided that Denise would drop out of Hillman, return home to her family, and eventually travel to Africa throughout the fifth season of "The Cosby Show", ensuring that viewers would not see a pregnant Denise. Allen was also in favor of keeping Tomei, as she herself recalled a white student at Howard and wanted to relate that in the show and even had possible premises for her character, such as meeting Dwayne's parents and seeing the other side of racism.


title: A Different World

text: However, the network rejected this storyline and the producers released Tomei from the show, and she and Marie-Alise Recasner were replaced by Cree Summer and Charnele Brown, respectively. Darryl M. Bell and Sinbad were promoted to the principal cast, and Glynn Turman and Lou Myers were added as supporting cast members. These changes led to the placement of Whitley and Dwayne at the center of a wider ensemble, dealing with more relevant issues of the day.


title: A Different World

text: As a show developed by Bill Cosby for a character from "The Cosby Show", "A Different World" had many connections to its parent program, even before the latter program was created. The third season finale of "The Cosby Show", entitled "Hillman", was essentially a pilot episode for the new show.


title: A Different World

text: The theme song was co-written by Stu Gardner, Bill Cosby, and Dawnn Lewis – who was also a cast member. In the online interviews related to the 2006 "Hillman College Reunion," Lewis revealed that her being approached to write the song and to audition were two separate events that occurred within a short time of each other, such that she thought it was a practical joke by her friends.


title: A Different World

text: The spin-off program featured many appearances by characters from the parent program, especially in the initial season, in which Denise's father Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby), mother Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), younger sisters Vanessa Huxtable (Tempestt Bledsoe) and Rudy, brother Theodore Huxtable (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), and grandfather Russell (Earle Hyman) all appeared on the show, either at Hillman or at the other end of a phone call. Denise's departure from Hillman after Season 1 did not stop her mother from reappearing on the show.


title: A Different World

text: Three of Phylicia Rashad's four appearances as Hillman alumna Clair Huxtable took place after season one, and in one of these, she brought her younger daughter Vanessa to tour the college. Sondra (played by Sabrina Le Beauf in the parent series) was the only Huxtable child not to appear on the show. Martin (Joseph C. Phillips) and Olivia (Raven Symone) appear in season 3 episode "Forever Hold Your Peace", along with Phylicia Rashad and Lisa Bonet. Elvin (Geoffrey Owens) and Pam (Erika Alexander) also never appeared on the show.


title: A Different World

text: Producer/director Debbie Allen is the real-life sister of Phylicia Rashad. Allen made one guest appearance on "The Cosby Show", playing an aggressive aerobics instructor who helps Clair slim down for a special occasion. Allen appeared in later seasons in a recurring role as Whitley's psychiatrist. Dwayne and Whitley also visited the Huxtable home in an episode featuring the revelation that Denise had married and would not return to Hillman.


title: A Different World

text: A young Kadeem Hardison appeared on "The Cosby Show" as one of Theo Huxtable's friends in the first-season episode "A Shirt Story", though not playing Dwayne.


title: A Different World

text: Sinbad also appeared on "The Cosby Show" as a car salesman in third-season episode "Say Hello to a Good Buy".


title: A Different World

text: A Hillman alumna by the name of "Louise Sujay" was mentioned on both "Cosby" and "A Different World" by Clair Huxtable, Whitley Gilbert and her mother Marion.


title: A Different World

text: Like Lisa Bonet, Karen Malina White brought her "The Cosby Show" character to Hillman. Charmaine was the best friend of Claire Huxtable's cousin Pam Tucker. White's "Cosby Show" costar Allen Payne turned down an offer to bring his role as Charmaine's boyfriend Lance Rodman to "A Different World" as a regular during Season 6, preferring instead to pursue a movie career; he and Jada Pinkett Smith starred in the 1994 film "Jason's Lyric", which is considered to be a milestone in both their careers.


title: A Different World

text: Payne appeared in one episode during season five in which Charmaine visits Hillman as a prospective student, bringing Lance along to see if he can gain admission as well. When Charmaine arrives at Hillman, she and Lance are maintaining a long-distance relationship and he is mentioned in multiple episodes. Lance and Charmaine later break up over the phone.


title: A Different World

text: Years later, Tempestt Bledsoe (who played Vanessa on "Cosby") and Darryl M. Bell (who played Ron on "A Different World") became a real-life couple and co-starred on the 2009 Fox Reality Channel series "Househusbands of Hollywood".


title: A Different World

text: Hillman College is a fictional historically black college, founded in 1881 and located in the commonwealth of Virginia. The exact locality of the school is never revealed, but several geographic references are made which allude to the campus either being located somewhere in the Hampton Roads area or in the Roanoke Metropolitan Area. The school's motto is "Deus Nondum Te Confecit", which literally translates from Latin to: "God has not yet finished you". The school colors are maroon and gray. Visual shots of the Hillman campus that were used in the series were actually filmed at two real-life Black colleges, Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College, both in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: A Different World

text: The first references to Hillman on "The Cosby Show" were made during season one, when it is mentioned as the place where Cliff Huxtable and Clair Hanks went to school while they were engaged. Cliff's father Russell is also a Hillman alumnus. The school made its first on-screen appearance in the third-season finale of "The Cosby Show", titled "Hillman", when Cliff and Clair and their family attend a Hillman commencement ceremony which also honored a retiring professor.


title: A Different World

text: Urban Works released Season 1 of "A Different World" on DVD in Region 1 on November 8, 2005. Several release dates for a Season 2 DVD were announced (May 2006, July 2006, and September 2006), but the DVD was never released. Urban Works was acquired by First Look Studios in early 2006. The distribution rights for the series have since reverted to the production company, Carsey-Werner Productions. FilmRise has currently made the series available on streaming services, especially Amazon Prime.


title: A Different World

text: Critics say that "A Different World" benefited from airing between "The Cosby Show" and "Cheers" on Thursday night. The show consistently ranked first or second among African American viewers during most of its run.


title: A Different World

text: "The Hollywood Reporter" is quoted as stating that when Debbie Allen became the producer (and usually director) of "A Different World" after the first season, she transformed it "from a bland "Cosby" spin-off into a lively, socially responsible, ensemble situation comedy."


title: A Different World

text: a graduate of historically black Howard University – drew from her college experiences in an effort to accurately reflect in the show the social and political life on black campuses. Moreover, Allen instituted a yearly spring trip to Atlanta where series writers visited three of the nation's leading black colleges, Clark Atlanta, Morehouse and Spelman. During these visits, ideas for several of the episodes emerged from meetings with students and faculty.


title: A Different World

text: On August 23 and 24, 2012, Debbie Allen, the former chief creative force of "A Different World" from 1988 to 1993, wrote on Twitter that she wanted to reboot the series. Over a million people on Facebook, Twitter and blogs reacted to the tweet and approve the potential reboot.


title: A Different World

text: Because of Debbie Allen's influence as the producer (and usually director) of "A Different World" after the first season, African-American youth who watched the show often cite it as a defining reason why many of them decided to attend a historically Black college or university.


title: A Different World

text: In August 2006, Nick at Nite aired a week-long marathon showing episodes of "A Different World". Lisa Bonet, Dawnn Lewis, Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Darryl M. Bell, Cree Summer, and Sinbad reunited for short vignettes that provided a glimpse of the current state of their characters. Nick at Nite's "Hillman College Reunion" website added details beyond those shown on television.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Alexia Putellas Segura (Catalan: Alèxia Putellas i Segura, ; born 4 February 1994) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Barcelona, which she captains, and the Spain national team. She previously played for Espanyol and Levante, and has represented Catalonia. Having won all major club and individual awards available to a European player by 2022, she is widely regarded as the best contemporary female footballer in the world, and one of the greatest of all time.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas has played for Barcelona since 2012, after spending most of her youth career in the ranks of Espanyol. With Barcelona, she has won six league titles, seven Copas de la Reina, and one UEFA Women's Champions League title. In Barcelona's 2020–21 season, she played an essential role as her team won the Champions League as well as the resulting continental treble, both for the first time in their history. Putellas then went on to win the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award, the Ballon d'Or Féminin, and The Best FIFA Women's Player in 2021, becoming the first player to win all three in the same year. In 2022, despite missing the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 due to injury, she won the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award and the Ballon d'Or Féminin, each for a second consecutive year, making her the first woman to do so.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On the international stage, Putellas had success with Spain's youth national teams, winning two UEFA Women's U-17 Euros (in 2010 and 2011) as well as finishing second place in the 2012 UEFA Women's U-19 Euro. She made her debut for Spain's senior national team in 2013, and has since featured in three major international competitions with the team: Spain's FIFA Women's World Cup debut in 2015, the 2017 UEFA Women's Euro, and the 2019 World Cup.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: As of 2022, Putellas has the second-most all-time appearances for Barcelona behind former left back Melanie Serrano, and is currently their second-highest all-time scorer behind former striker Jennifer Hermoso. She also holds the record of most appearances for Spain with 100 caps, having surpassed Marta Torrejón's previous record of 90 caps in 2021.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Alexia Putellas Segura was born on 4 February 1994, to Jaume Putellas Rota and Elisabet "Eli" Segura Sabaté in Mollet del Vallès, a municipality in the province of Barcelona. She has a younger sister, Alba. Putellas has been a supporter of FC Barcelona since her early childhood and would travel with the "Penya" of Mollet del Vallès to watch matches at the Camp Nou with her father. She would also watch Barcelona matches at a local bar, La Bolera, with her family; she has said that her family have always been fanatic supporters of the club, with the exception of a cousin who supports Real Madrid.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Despite being born into a basketball-playing family, Putellas first began playing club football in 2001 at seven years old. Having played basketball as well as hockey and tennis, she began playing football at school, with her mother allowing her to join a football team on the condition she stop playing at school, though she continued. Putellas interpreted her mother's request as a reflection of machismo, specifically prejudice towards girls playing football, in society, saying that her family themselves always accepted her ambitions. She enjoyed football at school, where she was either the one choosing football teams or got picked first, but knows women who felt sidelined by peers for wanting to participate. A mature and reserved but not shy child, Putellas showed leadership qualities from a young age. Her first club was the local CF Mollet UE boys' team; she only had three training sessions there, leaving as she did not like the atmosphere and soon after joining the Sabadell girls' team.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Deciding to undertake a degree due to a lack of professionalism in Spanish women's football, Putellas began studying Business Administration and Management at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona in 2013, later taking a break from her studies to focus on football.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: When she was seven, Putellas began playing for Sabadell, being enrolled through a family friend who played for the club, where she first played with Vicky Losada and Marta Corredera. Despite being several years younger than some of her teammates, Putellas was made one of the team captains. Sabadell was the only nearby club that had a women's section. Though the women's team flourished during the period Putellas was with them, the girls' team was not a priority, and it was difficult for Putellas and her family to manage her training there as a child. She gave an interview in 2004, aged 10, admitting that when she had been younger she did not always like football; by this age, she was playing it religiously and taking charge of boys' games.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2005, Putellas spent a year in La Masia, Barcelona's youth academy. Joining Barcelona was her dream, but she had to leave when the women's system was restructured and there was no team for her age group; Xavi Llorens, who became manager in 2006, reflected that he always expected Putellas to return, "it was just a matter of waiting for the right time". Many of the displaced players joined the other Barcelona team, Espanyol, which Putellas did when she was twelve.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas made her senior team debut with Espanyol when she was sixteen years old. She was a part of the Espanyol squad that won the 2010 Copa de la Reina in a 3–1 win vs Rayo Vallecano.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2011, she started in the final of the Copa de la Reina for Espanyol, where they lost 0–1 in extra time against Barcelona. Putellas' performances with Espanyol identified her as one of Spain's best young players.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Already a star in the fledgling women's football world in Spain after her success with the youth national team, Putellas attracted attention when she moved to Valencian club Levante at the age of seventeen, only a month after the 2011 Copa de la Reina final. Levante did not compete in the 2012 Copa de la Reina due to failing to qualify in the previous season, but had numerous Spain football veterans and a professional environment, unusual at the time, which is said to have contributed to Putellas' individual growth. Individually, she had a successful 2011–2012 campaign, scoring 15 goals in 34 matches (playing all matches in the season) and finishing as Levante's top scorer. At Levante, she was coached in how to play off the ball, developing technical and tactical skills like a midfielder, and to become capable with both feet after the coach, Antonio Contreras, felt she was too reliant on her left. He also described her as a very classy and intelligent player already.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Llorens and Barcelona had continued to follow Putellas' career after she left La Masia and in the summer of 2012, following her breakthrough year with Levante and the death of her father, approached her to rejoin the club. She accepted the offer, and started and played most of Barcelona's matches that season. Because of Barcelona's first-ever league title win in the previous season, they were set to make their debut in the 2012–13 UEFA Women's Champions League. On 26 September 2013, Putellas started in her UEFA Women's Champions League debut against Arsenal, where they lost 0–3 at home. In the away leg, Barcelona lost 0–4, and exited their tournament debut in the Round of 32.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 4 May 2013, Putellas won her first league title with the club when Barcelona won 2–1 against Athletic Bilbao. The match, played at the San Mamés with 25,000 spectators, is remembered by Putellas as one of her favorite matches of her career because it "made her feel like a footballer." In the 2013 final of the Copa de la Reina, she scored Barcelona's third goal versus Prainsa Zaragoza, where she dribbled past two Zaragoza defenders, past their keeper, and poked the ball into the net. The goal went viral and attracted more attention for Putellas from Spanish and international media. Barcelona won 4–0, the first domestic double in their history. Putellas, playing as a forward, was chosen as MVP of the Copa de la Reina final for her performance.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas won her second consecutive league title with Barcelona after the team went unbeaten throughout 27 rounds. Putellas was also an integral part of Barcelona's 2014 Copa de la Reina campaign, scoring in each round of the knockout stage. Barcelona advanced past the quarterfinals against Real Sociedad with an aggregate score of 1–0, a Putellas goal in the away leg being the tie decider. In the home leg of the semifinals, she scored in a 2–1 Barcelona home win versus Rayo Vallecano. That tie would end up finishing 3–1, propelling the team to the final against Athletic Bilbao. Putellas scoring an outside-the-box goal in extra time of the final meant a penalty shootout for Barcelona, where she scored the game-winning fifth penalty and earned her fifth major club trophy. She was named MVP of the Copa de la Reina for the second season in a row.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas scored her first ever Champions League goal in the Round of 32 of the 2014–15 UEFA Women's Champions League against Czech side Slavia Prague. Barcelona advanced after defeating Slavia Prague on a 4-0 aggregate score, but failed to get past Bristol City, losing 1–2 on aggregate in the Round of 16.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas won her third league title with the club after Barcelona were crowned champions in April 2015.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas missed Barcelona's first UEFA Women's Champions League match of the 2015–16 season against BIIK Kazygurt, which ended in a 1–1 draw. She returned the following match, assisting Jennifer Hermoso against the Kazakh side in a 4–0 win. She scored the first four-goal game of her career in 2015, in a 10–0 win against Fundación Albacete.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In the quarterfinals of the 2016 Copa de la Reina, Putellas scored a brace and gave an assist to Míriam Diéguez in a 5–1 win against Real Sociedad, sending the "blaugranas" to the semifinal. She finished her season as Barcelona's second-highest goalscorer in the league with 18 goals.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In February 2017, Putellas was named as a candidate for the FIFPro Women's World XI for the first time, where she was listed amongst the forwards. In the 2016–2017 season, Barcelona reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Women's Champions League for the first time in the club's history. They were knocked out 5–1 on aggregate by Paris Saint Germain, where Putellas started both matches. On 18 June 2017, Putellas won her third Copa de la Reina with the club when she scored in the 2017 Copa de la Reina final in a 4–1 win against Atlético Madrid.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 2 October 2017, Putellas wore the captain's band for the first time at Barcelona in a match against Santa Teresa, after all four of the club's captains were either benched or not selected in that matchday squad.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas was Barcelona's sole scorer in both legs of the 2018 Copa de la Reina quarterfinal, scoring both match-winners against Levante to bring Barcelona to the semifinals. After advancing past Athletic Bilbao in the semifinals, Barcelona made it to the final where they won 1–0 over Atlético Madrid late in extra time.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In the 2018–2019 season, Putellas was named as Barcelona's fourth captain, the first official captaincy role of her senior career. In the first match of that season's Champions League, Putellas conceded an own goal as Barcelona fell in a 3–1 shock defeat to BIIK Kazygurt. They came back from that loss to win 3–0 at home, and ended up advancing to the semifinals for the second time in club history. Putellas started both games versus Bayern, where Barcelona won 2–0 on aggregate. On 18 May 2019, Putellas started in Barcelona's first ever UWCL final versus Lyon, who went on to win the match 4–1. Following Barcelona's loss in the final, Putellas was named to the UEFA Women's Champions League Squad of the Season for the first time in her career. Not soon after, she renewed her contract with the club for 3 more seasons to 2022. She ended the season as Barcelona's top scorer in the league with 16 goals and overall with 18 goals.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2019, Putellas was given second captaincy for the first time at Barcelona after being named as fourth captain in the previous year. For the first few months of the 2019–20 season, she captained the side during Vicky Losada's hamstring injury, but began to start as captain in most matches by default as Losada transitioned to an off-the-bench role. On 7 September 2019, she became the first player to ever score at the Estadi Johan Cruyff in a 9–1 win versus Tacón, the team that would later become Real Madrid. Some days later, Putellas scored Barcelona's first goal of the 2019-20 Champions League campaign, away against Juventus. In the home leg, she scored the first ever Champions League goal at the Estadi Johan Cruyff.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In February of the following year, she started and captained both legs of the first ever Supercopa de España Femenina. In the final, she scored a brace in a 10–1 thrashing of Real Sociedad, winning her first major title with the club in two years. Later in the month, she made her 300th appearance for Barcelona against Sporting Huelva, the fourth player in Barcelona's history to reach that many appearances after Melanie Serrano, Marta Unzué, and Vicky Losada. She was honored at Estadi Johan Cruyff for the milestone in March. Following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, the 2019-20 league season was suspended, with Barcelona being crowned the winner with 21 out of 32 matchdays played. It was Putellas’ first league title since 2015, and her fourth with the club overall. She ended up contributing 10 goals and 8 assists in 20 league matches. At the end of the season, Putellas was named the best player of the 2019–20 league campaign.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Upon the resumption of the 2019–20 UEFA Women's Champions League, Barcelona played Atlético Madrid in the single-legged quarterfinal, where they won 1–0. Barcelona advanced to the semifinal of the competition, where they were knocked out 1–0 by VfL Wolfsburg. In a post-match interview, when asked about the gap in quality between Barcelona and other elite European teams, Putellas claimed "there is no distance." On the continental stage, Putellas was named as a candidate for the UEFA Women's Team of the Year for 2020.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Although the 2019–20 UEFA Women's Champions League was completed, Barcelona were still due to complete the remaining matches of that season's Copa de la Reina campaign. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the semifinals and final of the 2019–20 Copa de la Reina were pushed back to be played during the 2020–21 season. On 13 February 2021, Putellas played the 2020 Copa de la Reina final against Logroño, and drew a penalty which she scored to put Barcelona 1–0 up. Barcelona won the final 3–0, Putellas' fifth Copa de la Reina title with the club.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: As first captain Vicky Losada continued to be utilized mainly as a substitute at Barcelona, Putellas started matches as captain throughout most of the 2020–21 season. In the first match of the league season, Putellas started the first ever women's "El Clásico" against Real Madrid, where she scored the fourth and final goal of the match. On 6 January 2021, Putellas captained Barcelona against Espanyol, the first time women's teams ever played a competitive match at the Camp Nou. Just before halftime, Putellas scored a header goal off a corner kick from Caroline Graham Hansen, becoming the first female player to score a competitive goal at the stadium. The following week, she played against Atlético Madrid in the semifinal of the 2021 Supercopa de España Femenina, where she scored a free-kick in the 90th minute to tie the match and take it to extra time. Barcelona lost the match on penalties, one of their three losses that season in all competitions. In the second edition of the women's "El Clásico", Putellas scored Barcelona's first ever home goal against "Los Blancos". That goal was also her 100th goal scored in the league with Barcelona.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In the 2020–21 Champions League, Barcelona advanced to their second ever final. A day prior to the Champions League final, Putellas trained separately from the group with her left thigh heavily bandaged due to strain on her hamstring, and was at risk of not starting the final with the status of "doubtful." On 16 May 2021, despite her injury, Putellas started the second Champions League final of her career, this time against Chelsea. After going 1–0 up within 30 seconds, Barcelona were awarded a penalty after Melanie Leupolz made contact with Jenni Hermoso in the box. Putellas scored the penalty to put Barcelona 2–0 up within 13 minutes. In the 20th minute of the match, Putellas sent a through ball into the box towards Aitana Bonmatí, who scored Barcelona's third. The goal was later selected as the fifth-best goal of the competition. Barcelona ended the match winning 4–0, the largest margin of victory in any single-legged UWCL final, and Putellas was selected to that year's UWCL Squad of the Season. Later in the year, she was listed as a nominee to the UEFA Women's Champions League Midfielder of the Season award, which she won in August.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Later in the month of May, she competed in the final stages of the 2020–21 Copa de la Reina. Putellas was sidelined for the two league matches between the Champions League Final and the semifinal of the Copa de la Reina due to her previous injury, but started the semifinal against Madrid CFF where she scored two goals in a 4–0 win. Her two goals made her the first player in Barcelona's history to exceed 10 goals in the Copa de la Reina. In the final, played on 30 May 2021, Putellas scored two goals against Levante – a header from a Lieke Martens corner service and another coming from a shot from open play into the far right corner. The match ended with a 4–2 victory to Barcelona as they completed the continental treble, a first for a Spanish women's club team. Putellas also won MVP of the Copa de la Reina Final for the third time in her career, and scored the most goals in the tournament with five. The cup was her sixth Copa de la Reina with Barcelona and her seventh overall. Putellas ended her season as the highest-scoring midfielder in Europe with 26 goals in all competitions.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Following the departure of captain Vicky Losada, Putellas overtook first-captain duties at the beginning of the 2021–22 season. In August 2021, she was nominated as a UEFA Women's Player of the Year Finalist alongside Barcelona teammates Lieke Martens and Jennifer Hermoso. Putellas was given the award later in the month, becoming the first Spanish woman to win it. In September 2021, Putellas renewed her Barcelona contract for three more years until 2024. On 25 September, she scored one of the fastest-ever hat-tricks in her club's history after she netted three goals in four minutes in her side's 8–0 thrashing of Valencia, one of which was scored from 40-yards. In the month of October, Putellas kicked off Barcelona's 2021–22 UEFA Women's Champions League campaign by scoring their second goal in a 4-1 group stage win against Arsenal. That same month, she was listed as a nominee for the 2021 Ballon d'Or Féminin, the first Ballon d'Or nomination of her career. In November, Putellas scored 3 goals in two Champions League group stage matches against Hoffenheim. She finished the 2021-22 UWCL group stage with 5 goals.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 29 November 2021, Putellas was awarded the 2021 Ballon d'Or Féminin. She became the first Spanish woman to win any World Player of the Year/Ballon d'Or award, and was the first Spaniard since Luis Suárez in 1960 to win a Ballon d'Or. She dedicated the award to her father and thanked her teammates. In January of the following year, Putellas was named as the winner of FIFA's The Best Womens Player Award, the second FC Barcelona Femení player to win the award after Lieke Martens in 2017. Days later, Putellas scored a 91st-minute winner in a 1-0 match against Real Madrid in the semifinals of the 2021–22 Supercopa Femenina. She later started and played 65 minutes of the Supercopa Femenina final, which ended 7-0 in Barcelona's favor against Atlético Madrid.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas began Barcelona's 2021–22 Copa de la Reina campaign by scoring a goal in a 3-1 win against Rayo Vallecano in the Round of 16 of the tournament. In the quarterfinal of the tournament, played on 16 March 2022, Putellas scored 2 goals in a 3-0 win against Real Sociedad to advance Barcelona to the semifinals. Later that month, Putellas competed in Barcelona's UWCL quarterfinal matches against domestic rivals Real Madrid. In the first leg, she scored 2 goals to help Barcelona to a narrow 3-1 away win. In the following home leg, Putellas started and scored Barcelona's 4th goal in a 5-2 win over Real Madrid at the Camp Nou. The match broke the record for attendance at a women's football match with 91,553 fans in attendance. In April 2022, Putellas started and scored two goals in a 5-1 UWCL semifinal win over VfL Wolfsburg. The match, again hosted at the Camp Nou, broke the women's football world attendance record once more with 91,648 people in attendance.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 21 May 2022, Putellas started Barcelona's second-consecutive UEFA Women's Champions League Final against Olympique Lyon. She played all 90 minutes and scored Barcelona's only goal in a 1-3 loss. At the conclusion of the tournament, she was named the 2021-22 UWCL Player of the Season, included in the 2021–22 UWCL Team of the Season, and was recognized as the 2021–22 UWCL Top Scorer, scoring 11 goals throughout the competition. She also had the most direct goal involvements of any player in the competition with a combined 13 goals and assists.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas returned to domestic competition on the 25th of May in Barcelona's semi-final Copa de la Reina clash against Real Madrid. She assisted Lieke Martens' opening goal in a match that ended as a 4-0 win. In Barcelona's final match of the season- the Copa de la Reina final against Sporting Huelva- Putellas played the entire match of a 6-1 win and scored Barcelona's sixth and final goal. Putellas finished as the joint-top scorer of the 2021–22 Copa de la Reina, tied with Anita Marcos and Alicia Martínez with 4 goals.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: By the end of the season, Putellas' teammates agreed that "Barcelona is Alexia and Alexia is Barcelona". She finished her league season with 18 goals and a league-best 15 assists as Barcelona had a perfect, wins-only season. Her 2021-22 season was also the first time in her career that she had scored over 30 goals in a single season, and the first season since 2018-19 that she was Barcelona's top scorer in all competitions. Like last season, Putellas finished as Europe's highest-scoring midfielder with 34 goals in all competitions.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 5 July 2022, Putellas suffered an ACL injury while training with the Spain national team before the 2022 UEFA Women's Euro. Her recovery period post-surgery was estimated to be between 10 and 12 months, meaning she would miss most of, if not the entire 2022–23 Primera División season and 2022–23 UEFA Women's Champions League season.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 25 August, Putellas was awarded the UEFA Women's Player of the Year award for the second consecutive season. Months later, on 17 October 2022, Putellas won the Ballon d'Or Feminin for the second consecutive year, making her the first female to win the award twice.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas was involved in the autonomous Catalan youth teams from the age of ten. She was champion of Spain with the Catalan under-14, under-15, and under-16 national teams.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas began playing for Spanish youth national teams at fifteen. She took part in the UEFA U-17 Women's Championship with Spain in 2010, her first major international championship with a Spanish national team. Spain ended up finishing on top of the group, with three wins from three matches, and went on to sweep all their remaining matches, winning the final against Ireland on penalties. This was Spain's first ever title at the women's U-17 level, and its first at the youth level since 2004.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Spain's win at the 2010 UEFA U-17 Women's Championship gave them qualification for the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, played in the same year. Putellas scored in Spain's first match of the competition, as they won 4–1 against Japan. Spain finished first in the group stages, and went on to face Brazil in the quarterfinals, where Putellas assisted both of Spain's goals in a 2–1 win. When Spain reached the semifinal against South Korea, Putellas assisted Amanda Sampedro's match-opening goal, but Spain eventually lost 2–1. Spain won against North Korea in the third-place playoff match. Spain went on to replicate their success in 2011. In the first match of the final round, Putellas scored twice against Iceland in a 4-0 win, sending Spain to the final. Spain won 1–0 against France in the final, Putellas' second UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship win.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: The following year, Putellas carried on experiencing success with Spain's U-19 team. She competed in the 2012 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship, playing as an attacker and captaining the Spanish team. She said that she did not find captaining to weigh on her, but the opposite, that it gave her a boost in tough moments. Putellas scored in Spain's second match of the group stage in a 4–0 win against England. After finishing on top of their group, Spain played in the semifinal against Portugal, where Putellas assisted Raquel Pinel's game-winning goal. Spain advanced to the final, where Putellas started and captained the match but was taken off in the 83rd minute as Spain were defeated by Sweden in the second period of overtime. Though the tournament took place less than a month after Putellas' father died, she has said she had no hesitation deciding to go, saying that football was both her escape and her connection to him.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: The 2012 UEFA Women's U-19 Championship would be Putellas' last for Spain's youth national teams. In the second round of qualifying for the 2013 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship, Spain were placed in a group with Germany, the Czech Republic and Greece. She captained Spain in the group, scoring twice in three matches, but they finished third in the qualification table with one win and two losses, failing to progress. Despite the high-ranking opposition, Putellas had gone into the group confident, comparing her side's gameplay to that of the Spain men's senior team and saying they would "defend the shirt to the death". With Putellas and nearly two-thirds of the under-19 team aging out of the bracket in 2013 and 2014, and having not qualified for any major tournament for those years, it was said to be the end of an era for what was seen as a dominant period for Spain's youth women's teams.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas earned her first cap for the Spain senior national team in a 2–2 pre-tournament friendly draw with Denmark in Vejle in June 2013. The following day, national team coach Ignacio Quereda confirmed her as a member of his 23-player squad for the 2013 European Championship finals in Sweden. She and friend Virginia Torrecilla were called up as part of Quereda's plan to add the "freshness" of youth players in with senior figures. Reflecting on the differences between men's and women's football in Spain shortly after being called up, Putellas said that stereotypes in society prevented the Spain women's team from seeing the same success as the men's, despite having the same technical quality. In Spain's first match of the 2013 Euro, Putellas made her competitive match debut when she was subbed on against England. She scored the winner at the end of added time in Spain's 3–2 victory with a header, her first senior international goal. The win was Spain's first win at a Euro tournament in 16 years, their first win against England in 17 years, as well as their only win of that tournament. Putellas was a substitute again in the team's next match against France. She then started in the group match against Russia, and as Spain were eliminated by Norway in the quarter-final.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In May 2015, Putellas was called up as part of Spain's squad at the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada, their first ever participation in a World Cup. She started every game in the tournament, where Spain put up an uninspiring display of two losses and a draw. Her and her 22 teammates in the squad called for the resignation of long-tenured coach Ignacio Quereda, citing poor preparation for the tournament and lost confidence.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Under Putellas' former coach with Spain's U-17s, Jorge Vilda, she was called up to Spain's 2017 UEFA Women's Euro squad. She started in each of Spain's group stage games at the UEFA Women's Euro 2017, where they advanced to the knockouts on a head-to-head tiebreaker with a record of one win and two losses. Spain was defeated by Austria on penalties, where she was subbed in at the 68th minute.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In May 2019, Putellas was named part of Spain's squad at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, both her and Spain's second Women's World Cup tournament. She played in each of Spain's three group stage games where they advanced to the Round of 16, making it Spain's most successful run in a World Cup. Spain put up an impressive display against the United States, the eventual tournament winners. Putellas started that match, which ended up a 1–2 loss to the United States.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Nine months after the World Cup, Spain competed in the 2020 SheBelieves Cup, against Japan, England, and Round of 16 World Cup opponents the United States. Putellas scored once against Japan and scored a late match-winner with a header against England. Her performances earned her player of the tournament.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2020, after Spain teammate and close friend Virginia Torrecilla was diagnosed with cancer, Putellas began wearing Torrecillas's number 14 with the Spain national team. Putellas said she would not retire the number until Torrecilla returns to the national team. In 2021, Putellas was named of the three captains of the Spanish national team, with Irene Paredes and Jennifer Hermoso.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 26 October 2021, Putellas surpassed Marta Torrejón's record for Spain national team appearances, picking up her 91st cap in a 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualifying match against Ukraine. On 2 November 2021, she was named the Spain women's national team Player of the Year.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: On 1 July 2022, she became the first player to reach 100 caps with the national team, achieving this in a friendly match against Italy. Days later she was included in Jorge Vilda's final list to represent Spain at the 2022 UEFA Women's Euro but, on 5 July, the day before the Euro began, suffered an ACL tear of her left leg, which caused her to miss the entire tournament and potentially the entire 2022–23 season. She attended Spain's debut match at the Euros from the stands, a 4–1 victory against Finland, before returning to Barcelona and having a knee operation on 12 July 2022.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In September of 2022, Putellas gave her public support to 15 of her Spain teammates who refused to play for the national team until the RFEF addressed their concerns about their poor mental and physical health while playing under head coach Jorge Vilda. On 23 September, she and the 15 players posted a joint statement that criticized the RFEF for their response to the situation.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Having been a left-sided forward winger with playmaking ability in her youth career, the predominantly left-footed Putellas is best known as a left-sided 'number 8' central or attacking midfielder for both Barcelona and Spain. For Spain, she has also been played as a lone 'number 10'. She has been described as the perfect "Barcelona midfielder", with the vision, passing ability, and passing accuracy that resembles her male counterparts of Barcelona's ; her technique has been compared to that of male Barcelona footballers Xavi, Sergio Busquets, and particularly Andrés Iniesta, all of whom she has said inspire her game, as well as Real Madrid's Luka Modrić. "GOAL" has described her as "technically superb", creative, and decisive. A July 2022 technical report suggested that, while marking and dispossessing her were not impossible, the best way to overcome Putellas in possession would be to call on divine intervention. Alongside her technical ability, she is hailed for her leadership capabilities and overall fitness.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Normally situated in the central midfield of the set-up, Putellas is one of the main contributors to Barcelona's attack, with the ability to play as an attacking midfielder and a second striker. Putellas regularly finishes each season as one of Barcelona's top contributors in terms of both goals and assists. In the 2018–19 season she was the club's highest scorer in all competitions, and in the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons, she was Europe's highest-scoring midfielder. Her statistics around attacking play reflect those of a centre forward, and she is most typically positioned in the opposition half as the furthest-forward midfielder, occupying a "half-space" between the opposition's back lines, and between their full-back and centre-back; her ability to receive with either foot helps her to keep the ball in this tight space, opening up attacking routes forward. In attack, she is often the player to receive the ball from deep as the final stage of build-up play, quickly pressing or passing forward. When the attack is less advanced, Putellas is able to move further back and become a passing option for her backlines when they are looking for options to break through and attack; when positioned further back, she does not act as a deep-lying playmaker, with her creative play instead occurring in the final third.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: With the ball played down the left, Putellas often provides assists, using her skills on the ball to create goal-scoring opportunities in the final third. Her creative play is described by "Give Me Sport" as regularly "terrorising players with her fancy flicks and deft body feints". The website also noted her exceptional passing ability; though typically playing shorter passes, and more unsuccessful than not at playing through balls, Putellas otherwise has good statistics for pass accuracy and pass importance, and is often successful at passing into the penalty area. Not known for her speed, her ball management skills still allow her to dribble and keep possession, successfully dribbling an above-average amount.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: When the ball is played down the right, Putellas will position herself in the box, often at the back post, taking advantage of her relative height as an option to score. As a midfielder, she sometimes takes shots from outside the area, though these are less accurate than her shots inside the box, of which she takes many; her ability to find space in the box poses a significant attacking threat. When making forward runs instead of creating the attack, Putellas will come from behind her team's forward line and so is harder for the opposition defence to detect, allowing her to identify precise routes through and time her runs to receive a ball. In this play, she is also difficult to conventionally mark due to roaming.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: When needed, she can find herself in defensive midfield and left-back positions to help Barcelona open up spaces and retain possession. Spain presses high, with Putellas able to contribute to defensive play high up the pitch. In both teams, Putellas' defensive play is typically blocking the opposition's deepest midfielder, winning over 60% of defensive duels, though she has a frequent tendency to foul players she tries to recover balls from. She makes a significant number of loose ball recoveries in the opposition half and has a good work rate when counter-pressing.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas is sponsored by Nike. In 2019, she scored the longest-range goal at the Camp Nou (100m) in a promotional event for Nike's new PhantomVNM Boots. After reaching the 2019 Women's Champions League Final, she was the face of Nike's promotions for FC Barcelona, with a billboard displayed in the streets of Barcelona that read "don't play for finals, play for history." After her 2021 Ballon d'Or win, Nike gifted her a custom gold crown and a pair of custom-made gold Phantom GT 2 boots. They gave her another custom pair of the same boots after her 2022 Ballon d'Or win, branded as Phantom GT II; the "ll" digraph in her surname was stylised as "" on the box to indicate her second win, with the heel also featuring "Alexia II". Putellas has additional sponsorships with Cupra, Allianz and Visa, and is a member of Team VISA.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Putellas has been dubbed ""La Reina"" (The Queen) by fans, the media, and by Nike, who included the nickname in a congratulatory post for her 2021 Ballon d'Or win. In the 2022 docu-series about Putellas, "", teammate Mapi León said that she had earned such a sobriquet. Discussing this series, women's football reporter Asif Burhan wrote that Putellas' "dedication to the sport has revolutionized the women's game."


title: Alexia Putellas

text: The first song on Brazilian band Skank's 2014 album "" is a tribute to Putellas. Titled "Alexia", it was inspired by her viral goal in the 2013 Copa de la Reina final and compares her to global icons Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, and Lionel Messi, and Catalan icons Antoni Gaudí and Joan Miró, as well as commenting on her physical beauty and her style of play. The band visited Putellas in Barcelona to play her the song and seek her approval before releasing it.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: After winning the Ballon d'Or in 2021, Putellas' hometown of Mollet announced plans to rename their football pitch after her; Putellas turned this down after initially accepting, saying that she wanted the pitch to continue honouring the Gonzalvo brothers (Juli, Josep, and Marià, after whom it was originally named), fellow Barcelona footballers from Mollet. The municipality also announced plans to award Putellas the civic title (akin to Freedom of the City) ""Per Mollet"". The gymnasium at her former school is named for her. For Holy Week 2022, Easter "monas" depicting Putellas in some way were the most popular design of "mona" in Catalonia, overtaking Messi designs.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2022, Putellas was given an overall rating of 92 in the football simulation video game "FIFA 23", the highest rating in the game for any player, including men. Later that year, a wax figure of Putellas was added to the Barcelona wax museum.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In her youth, Putellas idolised male footballers Andrés Iniesta, Rivaldo, and Ronaldinho, who all played for Barcelona, as well as female footballer Louisa Nécib, who played for Olympique Lyonnais. Iniesta has returned the idolatry, calling Putellas a "role model" and saying she encapsulates the values of FC Barcelona.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2012, two weeks before the start of the 2012 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship, Putellas' father, Jaume, passed away. Occasionally, when she steps on the pitch or celebrates a goal, Putellas will point her fingers to the sky and look up in dedication to her late father. Putellas has a pet dog called Nala. She also has a large number of tattoos, including various Latin phrases, prominently "Labor omnia vincit"; a Hand of Fatima; an Eye of Horus; a Barcelona panot tile with "Made in" written above; a football; the number 112 (combining her first Spain shirt number, 12, with her iconic shirt number, 11); and a silhouette of her father holding her as an infant and handing her a football.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2019, Putellas spoke out against prison sentences for Catalan independence leaders in the aftermath of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, saying the sentences were "not the solution." She speaks Catalan and learnt Spanish in school as a child.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2010, 16-year-old Putellas was selected to the Best Female XI in that year's , a yearly list of the best U-23 female and male Spanish footballers, chosen by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), the Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE), the High Council for Sports (CSD), La Liga, and the Spanish Association of Football Agents (AEAF). Putellas was again selected to the Fútbol Draft Best Female XI in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: Along with Gerard Piqué, Alexia Putellas was named the best Catalan Player of the Year in 2015. Putellas was selected ahead of Spain teammates Marta Torrejón and Marta Corredera. Being key in Barcelona's fourth straight La Liga title and her participation in the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup were crucial for winning the award. She was again chosen for the award in 2017 and 2021.


title: Alexia Putellas

text: In 2021, after being awarded the Globe Soccer Player of the Year award, Putellas's image was displayed on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the first time a woman's image has been displayed on the building.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Kuril Islands dispute, known as the Northern Territories dispute in Japan, is a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the ownership of the four southernmost Kuril Islands. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands that stretch between the Japanese island of Hokkaido at their southern end and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula at their northern end. The islands separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The four disputed islands, like other islands in the Kuril chain that are not in dispute, were unilaterally annexed by the Soviet Union following the Kuril Islands landing operation at the end of World War II. The disputed islands are under Russian administration as the South Kuril District and part of Kuril District of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область, "Sakhalinskaya oblast"). They are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as its Northern Territories or Southern Chishima, and considers them part of the Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed between the Allies and Japan in 1951, states that Japan must give up "all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands", but it also does not recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over them. Japan claims that at least some of the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not covered by the treaty. Russia maintains that the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the islands was recognized in post-war agreements. Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 but did not sign a peace treaty. During talks leading to the joint declaration, the Soviet Union offered Japan the two smaller islands of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands in exchange for Japan renouncing all claims to the two bigger islands of Iturup and Kunashir, but Japan refused the offer. This disagreement between the two-island offer made by the Soviet Union and Japan's demand of regaining two bigger islands as well became the cornerstone for continuation of the dispute into the present day.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The first Russo-Japanese agreement to deal with the status of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands was the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, which first established official relations between the Russian Empire and Tokugawa Japan. Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimoda, which provided for an agreement on borders, states "Henceforth the borders between Russia and Japan will pass between the islands Iturup (Etorofu) and Urup (Uruppu). The whole island of Iturup belongs to Japan and the whole island Urup and the other Kuril Islands to the north constitute possessions of Russia". The islands of Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, that all lie to the south of Iturup, are not explicitly mentioned in the treaty and were understood at the time to be a non-disputed part of Japan. The treaty also specified that the island of Sakhalin/Karafuto was not to be partitioned but was to remain under a joint Russo-Japanese condominium.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, Russia and Japan agreed that Japan would give up all rights to Sakhalin in exchange for Russia giving up all rights to the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan. However, a controversy remains as to what constitutes the Kuril islands, due to translation discrepancies of the French official text of that treaty.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 was a military disaster for Russia. The 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth, concluded at the end of this war, gave the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Although Japan occupied parts of Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War following the October Revolution, Japan did not formally annex any of these territories and they were depopulated by Japan by the mid-1920s.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japan was a main ally of Nazi Germany, which the USSR initially had an understanding with, but found itself at war with from June 22, 1941. However, after the Battles of Khalkhin Gol ended the Japanese–Soviet Border War in 1939 and before the USSR declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, there was practically no hostile activity between the USSR and the Empire of Japan. Between 1939 and 1945, millions of Soviet and Japanese soldiers were facing each other along the Manchurian border. The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed in Moscow on April 13, 1941, and became effective on April 25, but was renounced by the Soviet Union on April 5, 1945. On May 8 Nazi Germany surrendered to the Western allies, on May 8 to the USSR, which ended the war in Europe and started the secret three-month countdown for the Russians to start hostilities against Japan, as per the Yalta Agreement. On August 9, 1945, just after midnight in Manchuria, the Soviets invaded Manchuria and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, beginning the Soviet–Japanese War. The Soviet Union invaded South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the subsequent days.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Invasion of the Kuril Islands took place between August 18 and September 3 (Japan had announced its surrender August 15, and formally signed it September 2). The Japanese inhabitants of the Kurils were expelled two years later. The United States had helped the preparation of the Soviet invasion through Project Hula, transferring naval vessels to the Soviet Union.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The modern Kuril Islands dispute arose in the aftermath of World War II and results from the ambiguities in and disagreements about the meaning of the Yalta agreement (February 1945), the Potsdam Declaration (July 1945), and the Treaty of San Francisco (September 1951). The Yalta Agreement, signed by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, stated:


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that: ... 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.: (a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union; ... 3. The Kuril islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japan and the US claimed that the Yalta agreement did not apply to the Northern Territories because they were not a part of the Kuril Islands, although US geographers have traditionally listed them as part of the Kuril chain. In a 1998 article in the journal "Pacific Affairs", Bruce Elleman, Michael Nichols and Matthew Ouimet argue that the US never accepted the cession of all the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union and has maintained from Yalta onward that it simply agreed at Yalta that Moscow could negotiate directly with Tokyo to come to a mutually acceptable solution, and that the US would support in such a peace agreement the Soviet acquisition of the Kurils. As a key piece of evidence, the same article (page 494 of) quotes an August 27, 1945, letter from U.S. President Harry Truman to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin: "You evidently misunderstood my message [about the Kuril Islands] ... I was not speaking of any territory of the Soviet Republic. I was speaking of the Kurile Islands, Japanese territory, disposition of which must be made at a peace settlement. I was advised that my predecessor agreed to support in the peace settlement the Soviet acquisition of those islands." The Soviet Union—and subsequently, Russia—rejected this position.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Potsdam Declaration states the following regarding the Japanese territories: "8. The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine". The islands comprising the Northern Territories are not explicitly included in this list, but the US subsequently maintained, particularly during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco, that the phrase "and such minor islands as we determine" could be used to justify transferring the Northern Territories to Japan.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Cairo Declaration of 1943 did not explicitly mention the Kuril Islands but stated: "Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed".


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japan later claimed that the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration did not apply to the islands on the grounds that they had never belonged to Russia or been claimed by it since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1855, and thus they were not among the territories acquired by Japan "by violence and greed".


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: A substantial dispute regarding the status of the Kuril Islands arose between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951. The Treaty was supposed to be a permanent peace treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers of World War II. By that time, the Cold War had already taken hold, and the position of the U.S. in relation to the Yalta and Potsdam agreements had changed considerably. The U.S. had come to maintain that the Potsdam Declaration should take precedence and that strict adherence to the Yalta agreement was not necessary since, in the view of the U.S., the Soviet Union itself violated several provisions of the Yalta agreement in relation to the rights of other countries. The Soviet Union vehemently disagreed and demanded that the U.S. adhere to its promises made to the Soviet Union in Yalta as a condition of the Soviet Union's entry into the war with Japan. A particular point of disagreement at the time was the fact that the draft text of the treaty, while stating that Japan will renounce all rights to Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, did not state explicitly that Japan would recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over these territories.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Treaty of San Francisco was signed by 49 nations, including Japan and the United States, on September 8, 1951. Article (2c) states:


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The State Department later clarified that "the Habomai Islands and Shikotan ... are properly part of Hokkaido and that Japan is entitled to sovereignty over them". Britain and the United States agreed that territorial rights would not be granted to nations that did not sign the Treaty of San Francisco, and therefore the islands were not formally recognized as Soviet territory.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Soviet Union refused to sign the Treaty of San Francisco and publicly stated that the Kuril Islands issue was one of the reasons for its opposition to the Treaty. Japan signed and ratified the San Francisco treaty. However, both the Japanese government and most of the Japanese media currently claim that already at the time of the 1951 San Francisco peace conference, Japan held that the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands were technically not a part of the Kuril Islands and thus were not covered by the provisions of Article (2c) of the treaty. The timing of this claim is disputed by Russia and by some western historians. In a 2005 article in "The Japan Times", journalist Gregory Clark writes that official Japanese statements, maps and other documents from 1951, and the statements by the head of the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco conference—John Foster Dulles—make it clear that at the time the San Francisco Treaty was concluded in October 1951, both Japan and the United States considered the islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu to be a part of the Kuril Islands and to be covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty. Clark made a similar point in a 1992 "New York Times" opinion column.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In a 2001 book, Seokwoo Lee, a Korean scholar of international law, quotes the October 19, 1951, statement in Japan's Diet by Kumao Nishimura, Director of the Treaties Bureau of the Foreign Ministry of Japan, stating that both Etorofu and Kunashiri are a part of the Kuril Islands and thus covered by Article (2c) of the San Francisco Treaty.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The U.S. Senate Resolution of April 28, 1952, ratifying of the San Francisco Treaty, explicitly stated that the USSR had no title to the Kurils, the resolution stating:


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: As part of such advice and consent the Senate states that nothing the treaty [San Francisco Peace Treaty] contains is deemed to diminish or prejudice, in favor of the Soviet Union, the right, title, and interest of Japan, or the Allied Powers as defined in said treaty, in and to South Sakhalin and its adjacent islands, the Kurile Islands, the Habomai Islands, the Island of Shikotan, or any other territory, rights, or interests possessed by Japan on December 7, 1941, or to confer any right, title, or benefit therein or thereto on the Soviet Union.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The U.S. maintains that until a peace treaty between Japan and Russia is concluded, the disputed Northern Territories remain occupied territory under Russian control via General Order No. 1. According to the Russian Embassy in Japan, "A peace treaty has not yet been concluded between the two countries, due to Tokyo's groundless (sic) territorial claims to the southern Kuril Islands."


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: During the 1956 peace talks between Japan and the Soviet Union, the Soviet side proposed to settle the dispute by returning Shikotan and Habomai to Japan. In the final round of the talks, the Japanese side accepted the weakness of its claim to Iturup and Kunashiri and agreed to settle on the return of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, in exchange for a peace treaty. On October 19, 1956, in Moscow, the USSR and Japan signed the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The Declaration ended the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan, which technically had still existed between the two countries since August 1945, and stipulated that "The U.S.S.R. and Japan have agreed to continue, after the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between them, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty. Hereby, the U.S.S.R., in response to the desires of Japan and taking into consideration the interest of the Japanese state, agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai and the Shikotan Islands, provided that the actual changing over to Japan of these islands will be carried out after the conclusion of a peace treaty."


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Joint Declaration did not settle the Kuril Islands dispute, however. In particular, the disagreement emerged over the interpretation of the territorial provisions of the Declaration, despite the Soviet efforts to avoid precisely that. The Soviet position was that the Declaration resolved the dispute and that no territorial demarcation will be discussed beyond promised transfer of Shikotan and Habomai, whilst Japan maintains that negotiations for conclusion of a peace treaty necessarily imply continuation of negotiations over two larger islands as well.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Continuation of the deadlock is often attributed to the United States' intervention in the negotiations, when US warned Japan that a withdrawal of the Japanese claim on the other islands would mean the U.S. would keep Okinawa and asserted that the San Francisco Peace Treaty "did not determine the sovereignty of the territories renounced by Japan", but that "Japan does not have the right to transfer sovereignty over such territories", although this attribution is problematic, since the decision to stand firm on demanding "four island return" (rather than following initial "minimal requirement" line of demanding only Shikotan and Habomai) was made by Japan long before the United States' decision to "morally support" these claims.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The question of whether Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are a part of the Kurils, and thus whether they are covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty of San Francisco, remains one of the main outstanding issues in the Kuril Islands dispute. Based on a 1966 book by a former Japanese diplomat and a member of the 1956 Japanese delegation for the Moscow peace talks, Clark traces the first Japanese claim that Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are not a part of the Kurils to the 1956 negotiations on the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. The Soviet Union rejected that view at the time, and Russia has subsequently maintained the same position.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The positions of the two sides have not substantially changed since the 1956 Joint Declaration, and a permanent peace treaty between Japan and Russia has not been concluded.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On July 7, 2005, the European Parliament issued an official statement recommending the return of the territories in dispute, which Russia immediately protested.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: As late as 2006, the Russian government of Vladimir Putin offered Japan the return of Shikotan and the Habomais (about 6% of the disputed area) if Japan would renounce its claims to the other two islands, referring to the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which promised Shikotan and the Habomais would be ceded to Japan once a peace treaty was signed.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japan has offered substantial financial aid to the Kuril Islands if they are handed over. However, by 2007, residents of the islands were starting to benefit from economic growth and improved living standards, arising in particular from expansion in the fish processing industry. As a result, it is thought that islanders are less likely to be won over by Japanese offers of financial support.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On February 7, 2008, Reuters reported that Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda stated that he had received a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin in which Putin expressed a willingness to resolve the territorial dispute, and proposed a new round of talks to do so.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The dispute over the Kuril Islands was exacerbated on July 16, 2008, when the Japanese government published new school textbook guidelines directing teachers to say that Japan has sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on July 18, "[these actions] contribute neither to the development of positive cooperation between the two countries, nor to the settlement of the dispute" and reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japanese Prime Minister Tarō Asō and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met in Sakhalin on February 18, 2009, to discuss the Kuril Islands issue. Aso said after the meeting that they had agreed to speed up efforts to resolve the dispute so that it would not be left to future generations to find a solution.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In June 2022, Russia suspended the fishing treaty. Russia stated it was because Japan failed to make payments. Russia did not mention the Russo-Ukrainian war as a reason.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Russia has given several concessions to Japan in the dispute. For example, Russia has introduced visa-free trips for Japanese citizens to the Kuril Islands. Japan's fishermen are also allowed to catch fish in Russia's claimed exclusive economic zone.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Russian Head of the Kuril Region has called for dropping the visa-free programme and Japanese fishermen were fired upon for allegedly fishing illegally in Russian waters. A Japanese fisherman was shot dead by a Russian patrol in 2006.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was quoted by Reuters on September 29, 2010, as saying he planned a visit to the disputed islands soon and calling the South Kurils "an important region of our country". The Japanese Foreign Ministry criticized Medvedev's statement, calling it regrettable. Many analysts also viewed that the announcement of the visit is correlated with the recent joint declaration regarding World War II between China and Russia, and linked to the Senkaku Islands dispute between Japan and Taiwan. On November 1, Medvedev visited Kunashir Island, sparking a row with Japan. The visit by Medvedev was seen in Moscow as a signal to Japan that its loudspeaker diplomacy on the islands would fail. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called this visit "impermissible rudeness" and subsequently recalled his country's ambassador to Moscow. The day after the visit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Medvedev planned more visits to the disputed islands, sparking a warning from Tokyo.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On February 10, 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered advanced weapons to be deployed on the Kuril Islands, "in order to ensure the security of the islands as an integral part of Russia". On February 15, plans for deploying advanced anti-air missiles systems on the Islands were announced. According to a military source interviewed by Russia Today, as part of the reinforcements, the 18th Machine Gun Artillery Division may be upgraded to a modern motorized infantry brigade. The division is to receive an air defense brigade, possibly armed with S-400 SAM systems, according to the Russian General Staff. The Russian military has also announced intention to deploy the new Mistral class amphibious assault ships, and one "Steregushchy" class corvette in its Pacific Fleet to protect the islands. Russia signed a deal with France in January 2011 to buy four such vessels. However the deal has since been canceled.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On March 25, 2016, Russian Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu announced that Bal rocket systems in Kunashir, Bastion in Iturup and Eleron-3 UAVs are going to be stationed on the Kuril Islands within that year.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On February 7, 2013, Russian Su-27 fighter jets entered airspace over Japanese territorial waters north of the island of Hokkaido. Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s were scrambled in response. Russia had been conducting scheduled flights over the Kuril Islands, but a spokesman for the Russian Air Force said that none of their aircraft entered Japanese airspace. This is the first incursion by Russian aircraft since 2008.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: After winning the 2012 Japanese election, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe made good on promises to restart talks on the disputed nature of the islands. At the end of April 2013, he visited Moscow for discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Abe said: "The potential for cooperation has not been unlocked sufficiently and it is necessary to increase the cooperation between our countries as partners"; he added that he intended to have a good personal relationship with Putin as a basis for resolving the dispute.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the Eastern Economic Forum, which was held at the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Russian President and Japanese Prime minister met in Eastern Economic Forum in September 2018. Putin said, "We agreed to hold the third Japanese–Russian business mission to the South Kuril Islands by the end of this year, after which the fourth round of negotiations on joint activities will take place."


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On September 12, 2018, Russian president Vladimir Putin offered Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe a peace treaty "before the end of the year, without any preconditions". Abe did not respond. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said "there is absolutely no change to our country's perspective of resolving the problem of rights over the Northern Territories before sealing a peace treaty".


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: At the Thirteenth East Asia Summit (November 2018) in Singapore, Shinzo Abe followed up on Vladimir Putin's proposal from September in Vladivostok. He said that the leaders would seek a peace treaty to the terms of the 1956 Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The declaration gave Japan the Habomai islet group and Shikotan while the Soviet Union claimed the remaining islands, but the United States did not allow the 1956 treaty. Putin and Abe agreed that the terms of the 1956 deal would be part of a bilateral peace treaty.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono visited Moscow and held talks on the Kuril Islands dispute with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on January 14, 2019. At the conclusion of their meeting, Lavrov said that they agreed on wanting to increase ties between the two countries but serious differences remained between the Russian and Japanese positions on the issue. He also said that Japan must recognize them as sovereign Russian territory as a start. In a statement to reporters he had said "Russia's sovereignty over the islands isn't subject to discussion. They are part of the territory of the Russian Federation." A couple days later on January 16, Lavrov questioned whether or not Japan has accepted the result of World War II.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In October 2020, Russia said it planned to deploy an anti-air missile system for military drills on the Kuril islands. On December 1, 2020, Russian Defence Ministry's Zvezda TV station reported that Russia deployed several S-300V4 versions of the S-300VM missile system for combat duty on the disputed island Iturup. There were already short-range anti-aircraft missiles systems on Iturup.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On July 26, 2021, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited the Iturup Island. Mishustin said Moscow planned to set up a special economic zone with no customs duties and a reduced set of taxes on the island chain.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On March 7, 2022, Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida declared that the southern Kurils are "a territory peculiar to Japan, a territory in which Japan has sovereignty." On March 8, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi described the four islands as an "integral part" of Japan. This was in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Japanese leadership had been reluctant to use language that could be seen as provocative by Russia when discussing the islands in recent years. When Shinzo Abe was asked if he considered the islands to be an integral part of Japan in 2019, he declined to respond so as not to damage negotiations with Russia, however, following the outbreak of Russia's war against Ukraine and the implication of sanctions against Russia, the Japanese government has returned to a more hardline stance on the islands as shown by Kishida's statement.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On March 21, 2022, Russia announced its withdrawal from peace treaty talks with Japan and freeze of joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril islands due to sanctions imposed by Japan over Ukraine.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On March 25, 2022, Russia started a military drill with over 3,000 troops and hundreds of vehicles on the Kuril islands, including the disputed islands.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On March 31, 2022, Japan redesignated the disputed islands as being under an "illegal occupation" in a draft for the 2022 Diplomatic Bluebook.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On June 7, 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced Russia's intent to cancel a 1998 agreement with Japan allowing Japanese fishermen to operate near the southern Kuril Islands, claiming that Japan is not meeting the financial obligations outlined in the agreement.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On September 5, 2022, a document was published signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin about Russia's unilateral withdrawal from a visa agreement. It allowed former Japanese residents to visit the disputed islands without visas. The Russian lawmaker said this was due to Japan's participation in western sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Japan's current view of the dispute is given in the official pamphlet of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In Japan, there are various private groups cooperating with local and national government to encourage the Japanese people to push for the return of the islands. One man whose family was evicted from the islands, Kenjirō Suzuki, heads the Tokachi branch of the League of "Chishima Habomai" Islands Residents ("Chishima" is the Japanese name for the Kuril Islands). In 2008, the main organization had a budget of approximately 187 million yen (US$1.7 million).


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In 2018 the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty (currently located in the Toranomon Mitsui Building, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) was established by the Japanese government to raise public awareness of Japanese territorial rights issues concerning the Kuril Islands dispute, as well as issues concerning territorial claims to Takeshima and Senkaku Islands.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Many former Japanese residents of the disputed islands and their descendants live in Japan, and since 1964 some have been allowed to visit family graves for humanitarian reasons. However, they have long sought easier access, and the ability to land on islands other than Kunashir. In 2018, Russia started to allow visits to the smaller islands in the archipelago, under a new system involving checks of tour ships as they approached from the sea. The new procedure to process entry requests to the four Russian-held islands was expected to reduce travel time from five hours to about three hours.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Russia maintains that all the Kuril Islands, including those that Japan calls the Northern Territories, are legally a part of Russia as a result of World War II, and the acquisition was as proper as any other change of international boundaries following the war. Moscow cites the following points:


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Russia has said it is open to a negotiated "solution" to the island dispute but declared that the legality of its own claim to the islands is not open to question. In other words, Japan would first have to recognize Russia's right to the islands and then try to acquire some or all of them by negotiations.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The islands are important both economically and militarily due to their abundance of natural resources and their strategic location. The archipelago is important for Russia's defenses because the straits give the Russian Pacific Fleet access to the Pacific Ocean, while other straits are under control of foreign countries or underdeveloped. If Russia were to lose control of the islands, it would also have its ability to control the access of foreign vessels to the Sea of Okhotsk reduced (the northern part of the chain of Islands would still be under Russian control).


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: On December 21, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual news conference that the United States' military presence in Japan was complicating the search for a formal peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. Putin told reporters that Moscow was concerned by the deployment of a U.S. air defense system in Japan.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In March 2022, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy Chair of the Security Council of Russia, admitted that Russia was never serious about reaching a territorial agreement. He said: "Obviously, we would never have found any consensus with Japan on the island issue … Negotiations about the Kurils always had a ritualistic character. The new version of the constitution of the Russian Federation [which was introduced in 2020] directly states that our country’s territories are not subject to alienation. The question is closed."


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In Russia, most of the population and mass media strongly oppose any territorial concessions to Japan. A common view is that the Soviet Union won the Kuril Islands during World War II and is entitled to keep them regardless of the prior history of the disputed territories. Many believe that taking these islands away from Japan was a just reward for the Soviet Union's sacrifices during World War II and for its agreement to enter the war against Japan at the request of its allies. The attitudes of the Russian public have hardened in the 2000s. According to a July 2009 poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), 89% of respondents were against territorial concessions to Japan in the Kuril Islands dispute, compared to 76% from a similar poll in 1994. The Zemlyak movement in Russia advocated a return of the islands to Japan during the 90s, but since then Moscow has begun to invest money into Kuril islands and the movement has ceased to exist supporting the return.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: A poll in May 2016 showed that the percentage of respondents that said they would support giving the islands to Japan was 7%. In November 2018 a similar poll was conducted, and the number supporting giving the islands was at 17%.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: Some individuals of the Ainu also claim the Kuril Islands, on the basis that their ethnic group inhabited the archipelago and Sakhalin prior to the arrival of Japanese and Russian settlers in the 19th century.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: In 2004, the small Ainu community living in Kamchatka Krai wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, urging him to reconsider any move to award the Southern Kuril islands to Japan. In the letter they blamed the Japanese, the Tsarist Russians, and the Soviets for crimes against the Ainu such as killings and assimilation, and they also urged him to recognize the Japanese genocide against the Ainu people, which was turned down by Putin.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: 's European Parliament issued a resolution "Relations between EU, China and Taiwan and Security in the Far East", adopted on July 7, 2005, which called on Russia to return to Japan the "occupied" South Kuril Islands.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: 's national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted on October 7, 2022, to recognize the Kuril islands as integral Japanese territories, illegally occupied by the Russian Federation. The same day President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree recognizing the Kuril Islands as territory of Japan temporarily occupied by Russia.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: The meeting between the leaders of two countries that took place on May 5, 2016 in Moscow was expected to make progress in the resolution of a prolonged territorial disputes. However, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Russian president Vladimir Putin focused on the "current state and the prospects of development of bilateral cooperation in trade and economy as well as in the humanitarian field". Close to the end of May, Sergey Shoygu, the Russian Defence Minister, announced that Russia is ready to protect the islands against foreign air traffic over the islands by positioning defence systems along the main islands. Furthermore, on June 8, 2015, there was an order from the Defence Minister to expedite the construction of military facilities on Iturup and Kunashir islands. This news generated a wave of Japanese dissatisfaction. Although Japan objected to the actions of Russia, the latter did not show any signs for changing its plans. On November 19, 2018, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that upcoming talks about resolving a dispute with Japan over a group of islands claimed by Tokyo would not necessarily result in Russia relinquishing them.


title: Kuril Islands dispute

text: A Japanese online resource reports that military infrastructure that is springing up in the Kuril Islands is believed to be part of the future plan of "North Sea Route", a sea route between the Kara Sea in the Arctic and the Pacific Ocean. The source believes that the route might be in hand to Russia since its power in the Pacific has been weakened for the last several decades. Moreover, the transfer of the Kurils to Japan would escalate territorial disputes Russia has with other countries.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and governmental corruption, in 1965 it received expanded jurisdiction to investigate breaches of central laws enforceable by the Government of India, multi-state organised crime, multi-agency or international cases. The agency has been known to investigate several economic crimes, special crimes, cases of corruption and other cases. CBI is exempted from the provisions of the Right to Information Act. CBI is India's officially designated single point of contact for liaison with the Interpol.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The Bureau of Investigation traces its origins to the Special Police Establishment (SPE), a Central Government Police force, which was set up in 1941 by the Government of India to investigate bribery and corruption in transactions with the War and Supply Department of India. It had its headquarters in Lahore. The Superintendent of the SPE was Qurban Ali Khan, who later opted for Pakistan during the Partition of India. The first legal adviser of the War Department was Rai Sahib Karam Chand Jain. After the end of the war, there was a continued need for a central governmental agency to investigate bribery and corruption by central-government employees. Sahib Karam Chand Jain remained its legal advisor when the department was transferred to the Home Department by the 1946 Delhi Special Police Establishment Act.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: This is DSPE's scope was enlarged to cover all departments of the Government of India. Its jurisdiction extended to the Union Territories, and could be further extended to the states with the consent of the state governments involved. Sardar Patel, first Deputy Prime Minister of free India and head of the Home Department, desired to weed out corruption in erstwhile princely states such as Jodhpur, Rewa and Tonk. Patel directed Legal Advisor Karam Chand Jain to monitor criminal proceedings against the dewans and chief ministers of those states. The DSPE acquired its popular current name, Central Bureau of Investigation, through a Home Ministry resolution on 1 April 1963.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The CBI established a reputation as India's foremost investigative agency with the resources for complicated cases, and it was requested to assist the investigation of crimes such as murder, kidnapping and terrorism. The Supreme Court and a number of High Courts in the country also began assigning such investigations to the CBI on the basis of petitions filed by aggrieved parties. In 1987, the CBI was divided into the following divisions: the Anti-Corruption Division, the Special Crimes Division, the Economic Offences Division, the Policy and International Police Cooperation Division, the Administration Division, the Directorate of Prosecution Division and the Central Forensic Science Laboratory Division.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The founding director of the CBI was D. P. Kohli, who held the office from 1 April 1963 to 31 May 1968. Before this, Kohli was Inspector-general of police for the Special Police Establishment from 1955 to 1963 and held law-enforcement positions in Madhya Bharat (as chief of police), Uttar Pradesh and local central-government offices. For distinguished service, Kohli was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1967. Kohli saw in the Special Police Establishment the potential to growing into a National Investigative Agency. He nurtured the organisation during his long career as inspector general and director and laid the foundation on which the agency grew.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The CBI is headed by a Director, an IPS officer with a rank of Director General of Police. The director is selected by a high-profile committee constituted under The Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946 as amended through The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, and has a two-year term (can be extended for another three years). Other ranks in the CBI which may be staffed by the IRS (Indian Revenue Service) officer and the IPS are Special Director, Additional Director, Joint Director, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Senior Superintendent of Police, Superintendent of Police, Additional Superintendent of Police, Deputy Superintendent of Police. Inspector, Sub-Inspector, Assistant Sub-Inspector, Head constable, Constable which are recruited through SSC or through deputation from Police, Income Tax Department and Customs Department.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: Gauhati High Court had given a verdict on 6 November 2013, that CBI is unconstitutional and does not hold a legal status. However, the Supreme Court of India stayed this verdict when challenged by the central government and next hearing on this is fixed on 6 December 2013. Some legal experts believe that the ultimate solution for Indian government is to formulate a law for CBI as sooner or later the Supreme Court may hold the constitution of CBI unconstitutional. As of 2021, CBI is not a statutory body, and it's not a constitutional body. It continues to derive its powers from Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: Demanding independent investigations, the CBI said that although it deferred to the government's authority in non-corruption cases, the agency felt that sufficient financial and administrative powers were required by the director (including a minimum three-year tenure to ensure "functional autonomy"). "As such, it is necessary that the director, CBI, should be vested with ex-officio powers of the Secretary to the Government of India, reporting directly to the minister, without having to go through the DoPT", the agency said, adding that financial powers were not enough and it wanted a separate budget allocation. Some form of autonomy has been granted by the Supreme Court of India to CBI when it held that CBI can prosecute senior bureaucrats without central government's permission. Indian Supreme Court also held that Section 6A of DSPE Act is unconstitutional.


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The CBI Director is appointed, for not less than a term of 2 years, by the Appointment Committee on recommendation of Selection Committee as mentioned in DSPE Act 1946 amended through the Lokpal & Lokayukta Act 2013 and CVC Act, 2003 respectively. The Appointment Committee consists of:


title: Central Bureau of Investigation

text: The Selection Committee constituted under Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946 nominates a certain number of names to the Appointment Committee, one among whom the Appointment Committee appoints as the CBI director. The Selection Committee consists of: