Subliminal Reinforcements

Russia has reinforced their Far East with air defenses in the Kuril Islands. Is this really aimed at Japan?

Russian Far East defenses are fairly weak. So this helps Moscow:

The Russian military on Tuesday announced the deployment of state-of-the-art air defense missiles to the Pacific islands claimed by Japan.

Russia’s Eastern Military District said in a statement that the S-300V4 air defense missile systems have entered combat duty on the Kuril Islands, adding punch to the shorter range Tor M2 missile systems deployed there earlier.

 This is portrayed as anti-Japanese and given its location that is easy to assume. But is it?

I think that Russia's military reinforcements purportedly aimed at Japan are really a stealthy move to block China.

Russia can't afford to anger China yet because Russia is still too weak in conventional military power in the east.

As I've long said, you often can't conceal what you are doing from prying enemy eyes, so the key to achieving surprise is concocting a believable and benign reason for what you are doing.

China surely doesn't believe the cover story. But the Russian people are probably the target audience. Moscow can't have their people realize Russia has been secretly appeasing China.