, ending their centuries-long border disputes; the
sovereignty dispute over the islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri,
Shikotan, and the Habomai group, known in Japan as the "Northern
Territories" and in Russia as the "Southern Kurils," occupied by the
Soviet Union in 1945, now administered by Russia, and claimed by
Japan, remains the primary sticking point to signing a peace treaty
formally ending World War II hostilities; Russia and Georgia agree
on delimiting all but small, strategic segments of the land boundary
and the maritime boundary; OSCE observers monitor volatile areas
such as the Pankisi Gorge in the Akhmeti region and the Kodori Gorge
in Abkhazia; Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed equidistance
boundaries in the Caspian seabed but the littoral states have no
consensus on dividing the water column; Russia and Norway dispute
their maritime limits in the Barents Sea and Russia's fishing rights
beyond Svalbard's territorial limits within the Svalbard Treaty
zone; various groups in Finland advocate restoration of Karelia
(Kareliya) and other areas ceded to the Soviet Union following the
Second World War but the Finnish Government asserts no territorial
demands; in May 2005, Russia recalled its signatures to the 1996
border agreements with Estonia (1996) and Latvia (1997), when the
two Baltic states announced issuance of unilateral declarations
referencing Soviet occupation and ensuing territorial losses; Russia
demands better treatment of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia;
Estonian citizen groups continue to press for realignment of the
boundary based on the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty that would bring the
now divided ethnic Setu people and parts of the Narva region within
Estonia; Lithuania and Russia committed to demarcating their
boundary in 2006 in accordance with the land and maritime treaty
ratified by Russia in May 2003 and by Lithuania in 1999; Lithuania
operates a simplified transit regime for Russian nationals traveling
from the Kaliningrad coastal exclave into Russia, while still
conforming, as an EU member state with an EU external border, where
strict Schengen border rules apply; preparations for the demarcation
delimitation of land boundary with Ukraine have commenced; the
dispute over the boundary between Russia and Ukraine through the
Kerch Strait and Sea of Azov remains unresolved despite a December
2003 framework agreement an