MOSCOW, Oct 30 (Reuters) -

Russia said on Thursday that any dialogue with Japan

regarding a peace treaty to formally end World War Two could

only begin once Tokyo abandoned what Moscow described as a

damaging "anti-Russian" stance.

Soviet troops took control of four islands off Japan's

Hokkaido - known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the

Northern Territories - at the end of the war and they have

remained in Moscow's hands ever since.

Japan's new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in a

speech last week

, scolded Russia for its "aggression against Ukraine" but

also said that Japan maintains "its policy of resolving the

territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

said she had not seen anything new in the remarks by Takaichi,

and that for any progress Tokyo would have to change its tone.

"We have repeatedly stated before that the path to

resuming dialogue with Japan will open only after Tokyo actively

abandons its anti-Russian course aimed at harming our country

and its citizens," Zakharova told reporters when asked by

Reuters about the prospects for a peace deal.

Zakharova said Tokyo's "unfriendly" policy towards

Russia had led relations towards a deadend.

"This unfriendly deadend approach was chosen by the

Japanese side, not by us," Zakharova added.

Russia and Japan had tumultuous relations in the 20th

Century: Japan sank most of the Russian fleet and defeated

Russia in a 1904-1905 war, and invaded the Russian Far East

during the Russian civil war.

Once Nazi Germany was defeated, the Soviet Union

declared war on Japan at the end of World War Two and sent

troops to take control of the Kuril islands. Tokyo and Moscow

signed a 1956 declaration to end their formal state of war but

did not sign a peace treaty.

Moscow has argued that the United States and Britain had

agreed at Yalta in 1945 that the Soviet Union should receive the

southern Kuril islands, but Japan has argued that the four

disputed islands are not the Kuril islands and are in fact the

Northern Territories.

Japan says the Northern Territories were illegally

occupied by the Soviet Union and that 17,000 Japanese residents

were forcibly deported from the islands.

Takaichi said in her speech last week that the military

developments and other activities of China, North Korea and

Russia were a grave concern.

Russian supplies account for nearly 9% of Japan's total

liquefied natural gas

imports and Japanese companies Mitsui ( MITSF ) and

Mitsubishi ( MSBHF ) hold stakes in the Sakhalin-2 LNG project in

Russia's Far East.

Takaichi told U.S. President Donald Trump during their

meeting in Tokyo that banning Russian LNG imports would be

difficult, two Japanese government officials told Reuters on

Wednesday.