Into the very gas: Tokyo will continue to purchase Russian fuel

Tokyo is not going to abandon Russian gas supplies, the Japanese Embassy in Russia told Izvestia. Despite the new round of American pressure, the country will "do everything" to maintain stable supplies under the Sakhalin-2 project. Although during a recent visit to Japan, Donald Trump asked Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to stop importing Russian energy. At the same time, a bill is being promoted in the US Congress allowing for the imposition of up to 500% duties against countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas. Experts are confident that these restrictions will not affect Tokyo. See the Izvestia article about why Russian gas remains important for the Japanese economy and how Washington is forcing Tokyo to change course.

Japan will continue to buy Russian gas

Tokyo does not intend to abandon Russian gas and will do everything for its stable supplies to the country, the Japanese Embassy in Moscow told Izvestia.

"Providing natural gas from abroad, including within the framework of the Sakhalin—2 project, is important from the point of view of Japan's energy security, so we will take all measures to ensure that there are no problems with stable supply volumes to Japan," the diplomatic mission noted.

At the end of October, US President Donald Trump visited Japan. According to media reports, during the visit, he asked Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), and in the future to curtail other energy purchases from the Russian Federation. Reuters writes that this topic was raised not only at the official talks, but also during a joint lunch between the two leaders.

Takaichi, as reported in the press, said that it would be "extremely difficult" to impose a ban on Russian LNG: it provides about 9% of Japanese LNG imports, supplies are fixed in long-term contracts until 2028-2033. Premature withdrawal from them would threaten Japan with fines and a spike in electricity prices.

The Japanese prime minister also stressed that if Tokyo abandons Sakhalin-2 and abandons Russian LNG, "only China and Russia will be satisfied with this," because Chinese companies will be able to enter the project in place of the Japanese. As a result, the gas itself will not disappear from the market, but will simply flow to China and other Asian economies.

"Our country's policy towards Russia is determined by us independently, based on what meets Japan's national interests," the Japanese embassy told Izvestia.

The Japanese have already noted that some of the Russian LNG under sanctions is supplied to China at a price 20-30% below the market, Olga Dobrinskaya, a senior researcher at the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Izvestia. Tokyo considers the increased sanctions as a factor creating even more favorable conditions for China as the main buyer of Russian hydrocarbons.

At the same time, the threats to Japan from trade with Russia have not disappeared. Trump has publicly threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on imports from countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas. However, back in the summer of 2025, Washington and Tokyo announced a trade deal with a 15% duty on almost all Japanese goods in the United States.

But now the United States is promoting a bill that proposes to impose up to 500% duties on imports from countries that continue to trade energy resources with Moscow. First of all, it is directed against India, China and Brazil, but formally such allies as Japan and South Korea may also fall under the action.

At the same time, Washington is unlikely to impose additional restrictions on Japan in connection with the purchase of energy resources from Russia, said Oleg Kazakov, senior researcher at the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"Japan is still a close partner of the United States, and the United States is interested in helping them organize a security system in the Asia—Pacific region," the expert believes.

Washington will put pressure on New Delhi and Beijing in this regard, but an exception will be made for Tokyo, Kazakov is sure.

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The future of gas projects with Japan

At the same time, increased pressure from the United States and Washington's desire to reorient Tokyo to participate in the planned LNG production project in Alaska create a negative background for future Russian-Japanese cooperation, the expert believes.

"Long—term contracts of Japanese companies for the purchase of LNG from Sakhalin-2 expire in 2026-2033, and the Japanese side is already making statements about options for gradually reformatting cooperation, in particular, switching to spot transactions," Dobrinskaya said.

Sakhalin-2 is a Russian offshore oil and gas project that includes offshore platforms, 800—kilometer pipelines across the island, and Russia's first LNG plant. It is in Prigorodnoye, in the south of Sakhalin, that reservoirs and a berth for gas carriers and tankers are located, which deliver energy resources directly to Japan.

From the very beginning, Tokyo was a co-owner of the project through a consortium of Mitsui and Mitsubishi companies. After the sanctions were imposed, they retained their shares in the new Russian operator, which became Sakhalin Energy LLC. As a result, Gazprom owns 77.5%, Mitsui and Mitsubishi — 12.5% and 10%, respectively. In 2024, about 56% of the total LNG from this project went to Japan, 28% to China, and 16% to South Korea.

In parallel with this, there is also the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project. It was initially created jointly by the American ExxonMobil, Rosneft, the Japanese SODECO consortium and the Indian company ONGC. In 2022, ExxonMobil withdrew from the project, while SODECO remained with a 30% stake in it. Half of the consortium's capital belongs to the Japanese state, while the rest belongs to large Japanese traders and oil and gas companies.

— The Blue Book on Diplomacy, an official document of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, notes the importance of the Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 projects for Japan's energy security in the medium and long term. Both at the government and business levels, the intention to continue energy cooperation with Russia has been repeatedly emphasized," explained Olga Dobrinskaya.

In this regard, Russia and Japan are linked by long-term contracts, lower prices and convenient logistics, Oleg Kazakov noted. After all, Sakhalin and Hokkaido are practically neighboring islands.

Japan currently has no real alternative to Russian LNG, the expert stressed. Washington is pushing Tokyo to get Japanese companies to invest in Alaska LNG, a major American project to extract and export liquefied natural gas from Alaska.

"As for the Alaska project, its prospects are still uncertain both in terms of cost, which is likely to exceed the stated amount, and in terms of the timing of the start of deliveries," Dobrinskaya said.

Earlier, associate professor of Kobe University of Foreign Languages Hironori Fusita, in an interview with the Russian media, stressed that it was unrealistic to immediately stop gas purchases from Sakhalin-2. Companies purchasing LNG provide them to various prefectures in Japan, for example, Aichi and Hiroshima. Due to the lack of pipelines, it will not be easy to provide these areas with gas in the absence of supplies from the Russian Federation.

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Russian-Japanese relations

There is hope for a shift in relations between Moscow and Tokyo, but everything will depend on Tokyo's concrete steps in this regard, Dobrinskaya believes. During her keynote speech in Parliament, Takaichi announced her intention to pursue a course towards resolving the "territorial issue" and signing a peace treaty. However, whether this gives hope for any kind of shift in the relationship is a big question.

Russia and Japan have not yet signed a peace treaty following the Second World War. The main obstacle is the territorial issue around the southern part of the Kuril Ridge. In Japanese rhetoric, these are the "northern territories." Until 2022, the parties conducted periodic negotiations, including discussions on various formulas for joint economic activities on the islands, and the peace treaty was presented in Tokyo as a long-term goal of normalizing relations.

Japan's imposition of sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine led to Moscow officially freezing negotiations on a peace treaty, accusing Tokyo of "unfriendly steps."

"There is currently no concrete progress in the negotiations on a peace treaty between Japan and Russia, but our course towards concluding a peace treaty by resolving the issue of ownership of the northern four islands remains unchanged,— the Japanese embassy told Izvestia.

They also believe that Tokyo and Moscow agree on the importance of humanitarian and cultural exchanges as an issue of common interest to both countries. At the same time, the further expansion of bilateral cooperation will largely depend on the steps taken by the Russian side, the diplomatic mission concluded.

The Russian Federation, on the contrary, regularly emphasizes that it was not on its initiative that bilateral relations deteriorated. "Tokyo hastened to fully join all unfriendly and hostile steps towards our country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated even before the appointment of the new prime minister. This position of the Japanese authorities still remains. "That is, the words about the desire to reach a peace treaty are one thing, but the real state of affairs and the real measures that have been taken against our country by the Japanese leadership are quite another. And we proceed from the real state of affairs," Peskov said.