title: Internal and External Risks to Japan’s Northern Territories Policy
abstract: On 8 August 1945 the Soviet Union abrogated the Neutrality Pact it had signed with 
  Japan four years previously and declared war on Japan. Throughout the rest of the 
  month of August it invaded Manchuria and occupied a chain of islands stretching 
  south from Kamchatka. The army hopped from island to island, continuing its 
  operations weeks after Japan formally surrendered, and only stopping when it 
  reached sight of Hokkaido, the most northerly of the home islands, in September. 
  The reason the 