Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that who owns Greenland is "of no concern" to Moscow, weighing in publicly for the first time on US President Donald Trump's push to acquire the vast Arctic island. In remarks that appeared designed to stay neutral, and perhaps opportunistic, Putin said the issue should be settled between Washington and Copenhagen alone.
Speaking to Russia's Security Council, Putin went a step further, suggesting Greenland might be worth around $1 billion if it were ever sold. He cited historical precedents, including Russia's 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States and Denmark's sale of the Virgin Islands to Washington in 1917, implying that territorial deals between nations were hardly unprecedented. "I think they will sort it out between themselves," he said.
Putin also took aim at Denmark, accusing it of having treated Greenland more like a colony than a partner. While he framed those comments as a side note, they echoed Trump's own criticism of Copenhagen and added to the pressure on Denmark at a sensitive diplomatic moment. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory within the Danish kingdom and home to a key US military base.
Moscow has quietly welcomed the friction Trump's Greenland campaign has caused between the United States and its European allies, even as it avoids openly antagonising a US president who is trying to broker an end to the war in Ukraine. Russian officials have repeatedly denied ambitions toward Greenland themselves, despite Russia's expanding military footprint across the Arctic...