Second Russo–Japanese War

The Second Russo-Japanese War was fought between 2026 and 2029, with Russia supported by North Korea and Japan supported by China. It would be the single largest front in the Third World War, with over 40 million soldiers martialed in total, a vast majority of them siding with the Japanese.
As early as the 1990s, Russian leaders had discussed returning the islands to Japan and formally ending WWII. Russia and Japan eased tensions in the 2000's, although no peace treaty was ever signed. In 2008, Japan began formally claiming the Kuril islands, exacerbating tensions with Russia. Shortly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations would reach their lowest point in decades, over disputes such as the Kuril Islands, diplomacy and sanctions. Events finally came to a head in 2026, when Russia began openly threatening Japan and preparing for a siege on more islands surrounding Japan's Hokkaido.
The conflict would ultimately result in the deaths of over 37 million soldiers, paramilitary, and civilians, and become the deadliest theatre of the War. The Second Russo-Japanese War would far surpass its predecessor in terms of the raw damage it causes, exceeding the amount of dead by over 10 times, and would result in the fundamental collapse of the Russian Federation. Japan would take some time to recover too, falling into autocracy and militarism for decades. China, although assisting Russia in various supplies such as equipment, shock troops and funding, would not suffer as much as Russia for its participation in the conflict, primarily concerned with countering India in South Asia. 
Russia, however, would never be the same. All of Russia's attacking and invading force is decimated, and Vladivostok is virtually razed to the ground in a siege that rivalled Stalingrad in terms of its overall barbarity and destruction, with nearly 2 million dead in Vladivostok proper and in the surrounding region. Both Japan and Russia committed atrocities against one another, with the Butchering of Primorsky as their reigning atrocity, although due to Japan winning the war and being ostensibly supported by the international community, United Nations and G7 (with the exception of the United States and Britain) a lot of this would be covered up for centuries to come.
==Kuril Islands conflict==
After increased Russian activity in Ukraine c. January-March 2025-26, US antagonism forces Russian arming of the Kuril Islands and militarizing the Sea of Okhotsk against Japan. Several months later, Russia begins shelling Hokkaido, Rishiri, and Rebun Island from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, and Japan responds in kind. Within the next 24 hours, Russia ceases its attacks and Japan concludes missile strikes against the Habomai islands. In the 3 April 2026 Raid of Shikotan, Japan seizes the Habomai islands and launches 4-6 April attacks on Iturup and Kunashir islands, beginning a yearlong Japanese attack on the Greater Kuril Chain, an exercise in penultimate futility. 
The Japanese are ultimately pushed back onto the Lesser Kurils, while also losing Rishiri and Rebun Island to the Russian occupiers. The G7 (minus the UK and US) react collectively with the toughest sanctions Russia had seen yet, following the recent Second Winter War between Russia, the Baltics and Finland. Russia sought to maintain a foothold in Northwestern Japan and take back the Lesser Kurils, and thus a state of constant war was unleashed between Japan and Russia, and would not cease until the collapse of Russia in the 2030's - resulting in what was effectively a constant stalemate; with the vastly superior Russian Navy unable to collectively come together to challenge Japan's homefield advantage. Despite Japan holding out, a combination of Japan's entrenched nationalist establishment and the US distancing itself from Japan over the latter's opposition to Israel would lead to a breakdown in relations between the Anglo-American Bloc and Japan, and the former ultimately remaining neutral in the war.
==Sino–Japanese Invasion of Ryukyu==
At the same time of Chinese troop buildup in the Western Hemisphere, Chinese forces were seen gathering in Kyushu in preparation for a major joint offensive in the region. On 30 March 2026 Chinese and Japanese missiles struck Northeastern Taiwan, Miyakojima and Yonaguni, following a land occupation by Chinese and Japanese special forces and armored landing divisions of the latter two locations. In preparation for an attack on Taiwan from Ryukyu, the CSTO forces were met with U.S. and Ryukyuan counterattacks 24 hours later. 
Although the counterattacks by air and land are successful, the battle at sea takes a different trajectory, with a Japanese destroyer and two U.S. corvettes being sunk by Ryukyuan and Chinese submarines respectively before falling back. After the invasion was repulsed 36 hours later, the remaining Chinese and Japanese forces retreat to their mainlands. With the attempted invasion of Ryukyu a failure, Chinese and Japanese forces reoriented toward the West and the United States as tensions between Russia and Japan accelerated over the Kurils and Rebun Island, where Russian forces had been building up since the start of the invasion.
==The Apex of WW3==
:See: Bolivian–Brazilian Territorial Crisis, NATO Declares War on Brazil, NATO Declares War on Chile, NATO Declares War on Russia, Belarus and Russia Declare War on the United States, Hungary declares war on the U.S., China Declares War on the U.S., NATO Invasion of North Bolivia, Chinese–Turkish invasion of Central Asia & Russian Invasion of Ukraine
===2027===
February – Guerrilla and asymmetric warfare being waged by Chilean, Cuban and Brazilian military forces and insurgents in Bolivia, Uruguay and the Falkland Isles against Islander military and U.S. elements since the culmination of the Second Korean War, and the South America and Balkan Offensive proxy conflicts between the United Nations and North Korea, escalates to a new all-time high when a high-ranking Islander politician and ambassador to the IF is assassinated by pro-Brazilian and Chilean militia via carefully-placed moles in the Falklandic and Uruguayan governments. The outcry causes the Falklands and United Kingdom to declare a state of emergency, and it isn’t but a few days later that public demonstrations against the executive order spread like wildfire. The Chilean and Brazilian-backed movement `Grupo de Amigos Personales (GAP) was discovered to be what the antigovernmental demonstrations primarily consisted of after investigations into the nature of the controversy were launched by the CIA, MI6 and RECON. Further investigations revealed obvious war-crimes and human rights violations, all of which were being ignored or covered up, or both, by Cuba, Peru, and other Chilean and Brazilian allies. Discovering this, the US deployed immediate reaction groups based around RECON and NATO primarily associated with regional disaster relief response and political crises. 
The alarm sets in throughout South America, with revelations that Chile, Peru, Cuba and Brazil had been supporting the movements financially, and cooperating clandestinely under the careful cover of Kremlin and Beijing whitewashing for closer military cooperation, and plans to cripple the South American, and by extension, the US economy and gain a long-sought foothold in the Western hemisphere for their allies in Russia and China. With efforts put forth by the Atlantic and Colombian governments, all of South America rally behind Bolivia and the Falklands in opposition to the GAP strike-teams. Left-wing and syncretic ultra-nationalism sees the opposition to GAP only increase its power and influence in Chile and Brazil, and by the early months of the very next year, GAP and the Pincer both indirectly and directly controls the Peruvian, Chilean, Cuban, Tunisian and Venezuelan governments. Russian-occupied Hokkaido, and GIS units led by Volkan Jamakovic, assisted heavily in this endeavor. The revelation of this to all of America, including the North Americans, results in widespread condemnation of English Chancellor Pharaoh, China, Chile, Cuba and the Brazilian far-right government and an intense territorial crisis between Bolivia on the defense, and Chile and Brazil on the attack, as the latter begins deploying the Brazilian Army and GAP insurgents respectively across Amazon, quickly establishing military superiority in the region and temporarily halving the country of Bolivia. Their efforts are discovered and cut off by the end of the second day and beginning of the third night of Brazilian military exercises. The result is full-blown conflict and an intense Bolivian Civil War. Said Verdean-instigated conflict reverberates throughout Latin America for years to come.
With the Russians and Hungarians terrorizing Europe, South America in flames, Pakistan and Iran on the verge of attacking India and Saudi Arabia, the worst was yet to come. Proxy wars wrought havoc across Africa and Asia as the Russian and Chinese bears leveraged their satellite states across Europe, Asia, Africa and South America - descending the following continents into protracted and asymmetric yet interconnected conflicts. There were no neat "fronts" as in the other World Wars, rather a collection of concurrent wars across the globe, confined to their various regions, Southeastern and Eastern Europe were under attack by Russia, Hungary, and to a lesser extent, China. Although the Chinese tried to stay out of most of the fighting, limiting their involvement to just outside their sphere of influence, attacking Taiwan, Ryukyu and South Korea. The front lines of the war became the Korean DMZ - against China, the Hungarian-Slovak border - against Hungary, and the Saudi-Iraqi border - against Russia. But as time would tell, these were mere pawns in the greater strategy.
==Japan vs. Russia==
:See: Tibetan Uprising & Vector Crisis of East Asia (February – August [2027-2029])
===2027-29===
February – On February 15th the insurgents launch several more attacks in East Asia – Vladivostok, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Petropavlovsk, Seoul, Pyongyang, Singapore, Vladivostok, Osaka, Manila, Quezon City, Hat Yai, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok – in 16 cities in Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea and the Philippines. Twelve hours later over 3,780 sightings have occurred and over 960 confrontations involving the viral vectors have been reported. At least 7,791 deaths occur within nine hours of the attacks, and continue to escalate by an average of 2.4 deaths an hour, with another 0.6 death increase in escalation at a roughly 50% chance of said growth and nearly 0% chance of any visible implosion every ten hours that went by. Chinese authorities manage to attain a pyrrhic victory against the vectors – with approximately 90% of the territory of Jiangsu Province, along with the 11 other surrounding provinces reporting viral presence and Q-Zone status, under hostile occupation – yet manage to evacuate most of the civilian populace, while Singapore manages to drive the infected out of the city-state and quarantine the city limits by the morning of the 21st. Other cities that manage to survive are Vladivostok (which, although a protracted campaign, manage to use the coastline and harbors as an effective brace against the encroaching hordes, allowing them to perform a tactical piston to rebound against the enemy), Ho Chi Minh City (using their home field advantage they eliminate the infected and push them back into China within twelve hours, before they can pose an adequate threat), Seoul (by the 16th), Osaka (manage to quarantine the infection within the south district by the 17th) and Manila (by the 16th). However, Shanghai, Petropavlovsk, Pyongyang and Quezon City are flattened by the infection – the result is the complete infection of the northern Philippines, viral occupation of Far-East Russia, the infection of East China, regions of Southern and Central China, North Korea, and the entirety of the Malay Peninsula by February of next year. The most devastating events of the Vector Crisis occur in East China – Shanghai, during the Bund Nightmare: 586,383 people die within six hours at the hands of the bloodthirsty viral weapons – and the Malay Peninsula, during the “KL (Kuala Lumpur) Purge”, in which 326,225 die by infection and another 55,664 die from firing squads and government police instructed to wipe-out the infected areas of “cryptids” left behind during the evacuation. A combined 968,272 perish in the Vector Crisis of East Asia, with Shanghai and the Malay Peninsula regarded as the preeminent epicenters of the entire Crisis by many historians – with more people dying in the Bund Nightmare and the Kuala Lumpur Purge than in the entirety of the rest of the International Vector Crisis as a whole.
August – During the Vector Crisis of East Asia, Korea and the Regional Forces Group come upon the realization that Japan's, and the rest of the region’s, intense focus on the containment and pacification of the bioterrorist threat lends it the perfect opportunity to trample Japan and occupy the island, to exact revenge upon the Pro-American country that attacked them several years earlier. Russia invades and occupies more of Hokkaido with its full eastern force of a million of soldiers, thousands of aircraft and dozens of naval vessels including fifty battlecruisers and a supercarrier. What Russia forgets is Japan's MAW complement of still-over 9 MAWS (4 RONIN, 5 SHOGUN), which they had been actively upgrading and retrofitting with constantly-updating technology and consistently more advanced weaponry for the past two years, aided by Japan's industry and dormant 4 RONIN fleet in the south of the Korean-occupied Japanese archipelago adding to the Allied forces. Although China still had over 1,000 combat drones it could lend to Russia, they are outmatched both technologically and in raw firepower by Japan, and cannot adequately aid them (Japan also largely dominated by Western political influence at this time). Korea withdraws from the conflict, drawing the ire of the Russians. The invasion is repulsed, miraculously, as Japan throws all 719,000 of its military personnel from the navy, ground forces and air forces against Russia's far more numerous – including South Korea's 3 “advanced walkers” – MAWS in ferocious resistance. Over 4 million Russians and nearly 40 million Japanese soldiers and paramilitary are killed in the fight against one another and Korea and RFG based there, including three quarters of their own MAW force, while the Japanese and Republican Koreans lose only a single MAW, even with the fabled “Gun Dragon” Command Walker (of which China claimed to have an entire army, yet only had two with one a secret), the People’s Liberation Army fails where the SHOGUN fighters and their RONIN counterparts – the latter revered as the pinnacle of the manned Command Walkers to fight in the Third World War – succeed in repelling Russia's Chinese-backed second major offensive in the region in mere months.
China's Taiwan invasion is repulsed almost instantly by the heavy number of infected there, and shortly after the East repel the COSECTOR on August 20th anti-Communist Tibetan separatist movements begin to surge across the continent. With the Liberation Army already in a weathered state from their battering by the infected and Japan, they make the last mistake they should’ve made – poorly executed intelligence and a heated ‘shoot first ask questions later’ attitude. Delivering the exact same response they have given to every attempted uprising, what they do not expect is a tactical, guerrilla-style counterattack with carefully and patiently-executed strategic response by the Tibetan Insurrectionists. Several cells placed within the PLA and Communist Party and backed by Japan execute bombings against government structures in Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin – as well as PLA strongholds in Chengdu, Luoyang and Xuchang. This creates a domino effect resulting in the immediate elimination of most of the Communist Party and PLA command structure, throwing the Chinese armed forces into disarray and giving the Tibetan opposition the tactical superiority for the duration of the confrontation. Sympathetic Anticommunist movements gain footholds in each of the seven military regions, as well as the North and East of India, arising from opposition to the pro-Korean and Indian Communist Party from within the PLA as well as the Indian Armed Forces. Throughout the rest of the year, into the next, and the beginning of the year after that, the Communists slowly lose their grip on Beijing and China as a whole. Shortly thereafter India, Japan, Taiwan and Free China launch an all-out assault on Beijing, capturing it and politically liberating China from Korea no more than 48 hours later. China effectively surrenders, with the Supreme Leader declaring war on India, although a series of quasi-terrorist militant guerilla movements would continue to wage asymmetric warfare for decades after the ostensible collapse of the Kim regime.
2028-2029– Despite Tibet’s ostensible political victory, the Communists – led by the imperialist and hypernationalist New People's Liberation Army (NPLA) – via Russian support hold out for several more years within the walls of the Forbidden City as the de facto headquarters of a Chinese-led Security Council dominion. Field Marshal Xi attempts open totalitarian rule over the United Nations – the Security Council that includes Britain, France, India and the United States of America – and by extension, ruling the known world. By 2027 the IF led by Tibet is able to mount a successful assault on the Palace of Heavenly Purity and capture Marshal Fang, destroying a hidden second Gun Dragon in the process, thus ending the incessant hostilities fomenting within Beijing over the last year. Shortly after this, Tibet's allies in India are aided by France, Japan, the Americans, Arab League and United Kingdom in an Invasion of Himachal Pradesh. Before Allied forces can make it to Lahore and Faisalabad, the Pakistani nuclear bombardment cripples India via Kashmir - but takes the near-1,000,000-strong invasion force with it.