Moscow (AFP) – As President Donald Trump intensifies his push to secure control of Greenland for the United States, Russia is revelling in the chaos while keeping its own position on US ownership over the island unclear. European countries have warned any US attempt to seize Greenland would rupture NATO, a transatlantic alliance that Russia has long seen as a security threat. But Moscow has also expressed concern about the West expanding its military foothold in the Arctic, an area where it has its own ambitions and which it sees as strategically important.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not spoken publicly about the dispute this year, while his spokesperson and foreign minister have called the situation “unusual” and denied Moscow has any intentions to seize the Arctic territory itself. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Trump would “go down in history” if he took control of the island, while declining to comment on whether this was “good or bad”.
Trump says US ownership of Greenland is critical for his country’s national security. He and his aides have argued Denmark, a fellow NATO member, would be unable to defend Greenland should Russia or China ever seek to invade the vast island, a Danish autonomous territory. Greenland sits under the flight path between the United States and Russia, making it a potentially critical outpost for air defences.
Without commenting on Trump’s claim, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Tuesday: “Greenland is not a natural part of Denmark, it is a colonial conquest.” He pointed to France’s control of Mayotte and Britain’s ownership of the Falkland Islands — which Lavrov referred to as the “Malvinas Islands”, as Argentina calls them — as examples of European powers retaining control of conquered territory.
– ‘Close eye on situation’ –
Peskov said last week Russia was “like the rest of the world, keeping a close eye on the situation.” “We proceed from the premise that Greenland is a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he added in remarks last Friday. “The situation is unusual, I would even say extraordinary, from the point of view of international law,” Peskov said, adding that Trump “as he has said himself, is not somebody for whom international law is some kind of priority”.
Pro-Kremlin media outlets and Russian political analysts have meanwhile revelled in the dispute. The Moskovskiy Komsomolets tabloid said on Sunday it was watching with joy at Europe falling into “complete disarray” over the crisis. “Naturally, a split within NATO, a bloc hostile to Russia, is good news for Russia,” Vasily Kashin, an expert at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told AFP. “Although it is not a given that this will have immediate positive consequences for Russian policy, for example in Ukraine, it is movement in the right direction,” he added.
Moscow has not said whether it would oppose the United States taking control of the territory, but it has repeatedly warned NATO against deploying troops and equipment to the Arctic region. Last week, the Russian Embassy in Belgium — where NATO is headquartered — accused the alliance of embarking on an “accelerated militarisation of the North”.
Putin has not commented publicly on the issue since it reemerged as a focus for the Trump administration in recent weeks. The Kremlin chief had in March 2025 said Trump had “serious plans regarding Greenland” that had “long-standing historical roots”, after the US President mooted the need for American control of the territory. At the time, Putin said the issue “concerns two specific nations and has nothing to do with us”, but that Russia was “concerned” about what he called increasing NATO activity in the Arctic.
© 2024 AFP
