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A two-year-old Russian resident of Yuzhno-Kurilsk who suffered severe burns in a home incident in October and was taken to a hospital in the Japanese city of Sapporo, was discharged December 7 in satisfactory condition after receiving treatment.

Nikita Ryzhov was scalded after he overturned a pan with boiling water at home on October 11, covering a third of his body with burns. The boy was provided with first aid in Yuzhno-Kurilsk’s hospital, which however could not offer further treatment due to a lack of necessary equipment and medicine, a press statement from the Sakhalin’s administration said.

On October 12, after a request from Sakhalin’s administration and Russia’s Ministry of International Affairs to the Governor of Hokkaido Prefecture Harumi Takahashi, the boy was transported to a Sapporo hospital. In late October, Ryzhov underwent a successful skin transplantation surgery.

The treatment was provided free of charge as part of the agreement on non-visa exchange between Japan and the southern Kuril Islands, Ria Novosti said.

“The case quite reflects the relations between Russia and Japan,” the agency cited Consul General of Russia in Sapporo Leonid Shevchuk, who called the doctors action a ‘heroic deed.’

The boy and his mother are currently staying in one of Sapporo’s hotels, the statement from Sakhalin’s administration said. After returning to Yuzhno-Kurilsk, the boy is to later undergo rehabilitation in a health center in Sakhalin.

In the past year, ten Russian residents from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin received free treatment at various hospitals in Hokkaido Prefecture.