Russian spies using Japan as a base of operations, Russia’s plan to name an island in the Northern Territories after Richard Sorge, and the establishment of Japan’s National Intelligence Bureau.
The August 1, 2026, edition of the Sankei Shō examines Japan’s long-standing failure to develop a foreign intelligence service and effective counterespionage legislation, while presenting the new bureau as a first step toward the intelligence reforms once envisioned by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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The following is from yesterday’s Sankei Shō, published in the Sankei Shimbun on August 1, 2026.
It appears that Russia holds Japan in utter contempt.
Last month, the American newspaper The New York Times reported that Japan had become a base of operations for Russian spies expelled from Western countries, describing it as a “spy paradise” that does not even possess a foreign intelligence service.
Now comes news that Russia intends to honor a spy from the Soviet era.
▼Russia reportedly intends to name one of the islands in the Habomai group of the illegally occupied Northern Territories after Richard Sorge, the Red Army spy who used Japan as his base while continuing to transmit classified military information to the Soviet Union.
Sorge formed an espionage group with Hotsumi Ozaki, who was then a journalist for the Asahi Shimbun, and others.
He provided the Soviet Union with highly accurate information, including Imperial Conference decisions concerning Japan’s entry into the war.
▼Sorge was ultimately exposed in Japan and executed in 1944.
His grave is located at Tama Cemetery in Fuchu, Tokyo.
In 2022, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced a plan to reinter Sorge’s remains in southern Sakhalin or the Northern Territories, both of which were formerly Japanese territory.
Russia’s behavior seems calculated to offend the sensibilities of the Japanese people.
▼Against this background, the National Intelligence Bureau was established on July 31 to strengthen Japan’s intelligence capabilities.
The bureau will be granted comprehensive coordinating authority to demand the provision of information from the foreign and defense ministries and other government agencies.
Serious consideration will also begin on legislation designed to prevent espionage activities.
Although the measure has come far too late, it represents an extremely important development.
▼Around the summer of 2006, shortly before the first Shinzo Abe administration was formed, Abe was serving as Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Junichiro Koizumi administration.
At that time, he described the following vision to this writer:
“If I can become prime minister, I want to integrate the intelligence organizations that are now divided among the individual ministries.”
His aspiration was not realized then, but Japan has finally taken its first step in that direction.
▼Japan cannot continue allowing Russia to treat it with contempt forever.