Kuzma Derevyanko signed Japan's 1945 surrender document for the Soviet Union.
Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko signed the Instrument of Surrender during the ceremony aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. He signed after the representatives of the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, and before the representatives of Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
The Soviet Union had declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, and Soviet forces invaded Japanese-held Manchuria beginning August 9. The Soviet entry into the war was one of the major developments immediately preceding Japan's decision to surrender, alongside the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Derevyanko is sometimes confused with better-known Soviet commanders such as Georgy Zhukov or Ivan Konev. Unlike those generals, Derevyanko was the Soviet signatory at the Tokyo Bay ceremony. He later served in Soviet military and diplomatic roles and died in 1954.