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Not the current regime, this was always Russian policy. 'Where the Russian flag was once raised, it'll never be taken down', that's what(IIRC) Tsar Nicholas I said.

Surface ships, yes. Submarines no.

As you said, not in peacetime. But you can bet the minefields are already marked in maps for the time mining is needed.

Distance from Estonia to Finland is around 80 kilometres(50 miles) or so at the narrowest point(those peninsulas next to Tallinn and Helsinki). IIRC, there is a small(big enough to put a fort on it) island in the middle of the Gulf of Finland at the area. Lay mines to supplement the coastal...

Eh, I'd say the reason there wasn't any was they weren't trying to block expansion of a rising opponent - if Communism had collpsed as totally as Nazi-fascism did after WWII, there wouldn't have been a Marshall Plan in the first place.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was the case. While the Russian official COVID death count is at 300,000+, excess deaths on the same period as COVID have passed 1,000,000 - they may have lost more to COVID than the USA, with some 40% of the population of the US.

No. The southern part of the Kurils wasn't on dispute after 1855, and wasn't part of the 1875 Treaty(which was the territory which Russia, as you put it, 'ceded'). That's why Japan claims the 1855 borders, not the 1875 ones.

No, not the southernmost Kuril Islands - ownership was settled in the 19th century(1855, Treaty of Shimoda). In 1875, the Treaty of St. Petersburg had Japan get the entirety of the Kuril Islands in exchange for Russia getting Sakhalin Island. Of course after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan got the...