This edition looks at Russian foreign policy towards Northeast Asia. In the first article, Akihiro Iwashita traces the history of the Russian-Japanese dispute over the Kurile Islands/Northern Territorities, and considers the prospect for a solution to the issue in light of the upturn in Russo-Japanese relations in the fields of trade and energy. In the second article, Alexander Fedorovskiy outlines how Russian policy on North Korea favors multilateral dialogue and cooperation, in order to avoid an escalation in tension on the Korean peninsula, seeing continued insecurity as an obstacle to Russia’s wider economic policy in Northeast Asia.