Former spy Anna Chapman turned TV host will arrive on the disputed Kuril Islands in March to hoist the Russian flag and make a film about the life of local residents, Russian media have reported.
Chapman will be part of the delegation of the youth arm of Russia's ruling United Russia party, Molodaya Gvardia (Young Guard). She was named a member of the group's public council in late December.
The group plans to open its headquarters on Kunashir, the second-largest of the four islands disputed between Russia and Japan. Chapman has been tasked with hoisting the Russian flag on the island, which is well seen from Japan.
During the trip, Molodaya Gvardia plans to make a film on the life on the islands and the development of the region.
"Japan says the Russian government does not take care about the Kuril Islands, and we will give them this film," the Russian tabloid Life News quoted the group's leader Timur Prokopenko as saying.
Four sparsely populated islands (Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai) in the Kuril chain between Japan's northern island of Hokkaido and Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula were annexed by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II but are still claimed by Japan.
The dispute over the islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan, has prevented Russia and Japan from signing a formal peace treaty.
MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti)
