BREAKING: Amid a pneumonic plague outbreak in Russia, several Asian countries have tightened sanitary controls on their borders with Russia or on arrivals from there. 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan imposed stricter sanitary and quarantine checks at every crossing: people, vehicles, and cargo. 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan stepped up sanitary and quarantine controls on its state border with Russia. 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan announced measures to stop the import of especially dangerous infections. 🇲🇳 Mongolia, according to some reports, put its border regions with Russia on heightened alert.

🇯🇵🇷🇺 Japanese conservative PM Sanae Takaichi restated Japan’s sovereignty claim, saying the four Russian-occupied islands: the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, are “inherently Japanese territory both historically and under international law.”