Which Soviet military leader signed Japan’s surrender document for the Soviet Union?

Kuzma Derevyanko signed Japan’s surrender document for the Soviet Union.

Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko represented the Soviet Union at the ceremony aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. He signed after representatives of the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, and before those 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 territory in Manchuria soon afterward. Its participation in the surrender ceremony reflected the Soviet Union’s role as one of the major Allied powers at the end of the Pacific War.

Derevyanko later became the Soviet representative at the Allied Council for Japan. He died in 1954 from radiation-related illness after visiting Hiroshima in 1946. His name is sometimes confused with better-known Soviet commanders from the European war, but Derevyanko was the Soviet signatory at the Japanese surrender ceremony.