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Vladimir Putin has announced to intensify geopolitical competition in the Arctic amid US increasing threats to receive Greenland from Denmark, but said Russia was open to cooperation with Western countries in the region.
While US Vice President JD Vance was set to visit the territory, Putin said on Thursday that Donald Trump’s goal of winning Greenland had nothing to do with Russia and had deep historical roots dating from the 19th century.
But he warned that the intensification of competition carried risks.
Speaking at a conference on the Arctic in the Polar City of Murmansk, Putin said it was “clear that the US would continue to systematically advance its geopolitical, military and economic interests in the region”, adding that its dispute over Greenland with Denmark was a matter for both states.
Putin said Russia was concerned that “NATO countries are generally increasingly defining the distant North as a springboard for potential conflicts” and would respond accordingly.
“It is clear that the role and meaning of the Arctic is growing for Russia and the whole world, but the geopolitical wars for position in the region are intensifying at the same time,” Putin said.
Russia would not “allow any incursion into the sovereignty of our country and would strongly defend our national interests,” he said, adding that this would increase the troops in the Arctic.
Repeated threats from Trump to get Greenland, potentially forcibly, from Denmark have unresolved islands and Copenhagen.
The completion mounted when many senior US officials were due to Greenland visits this weekend for what they billed as a “private visit” to see the national dog expiration competition.
But that trip was canceled after Greenlanders announced several protests against him, raising the spectrum of television images that would be embarrassing to Sh.BA
Instead, Vance and his wife will visit the basis of the Pituffik space, the only US military installation in Greenland on Friday in what Nordic diplomats see as a “facial saving mechanism”.
Denmark and Greenland were particularly upset about the time of the visit between coalition discussions as the national elections on the island were won by a party that favored slow, gradual independence from Copenhagen.
Greenlandic media said a coalition agreement between four of the five parties in parliament – minus it mostly in favor of rapid independence – must be revealed on Friday. Experts say Greenlanders have become careful that independence from Denmark can be used by SH.BA
Many parties remain prone to strengthening the American security presence in Greenland, as well as inviting US companies to help use mineral wealth spread on its large land.
Russia has raised the potential cooperation of the Arctic in the US as one of the several possible paths to bring Moscow from the cold three years after Putin ordered the full -scale occupation of Ukraine.
The Kremlin is inclined to develop the northern sea route through Arctic Transport Cands as it reorients its export -driven economy from European markets to Asian markets, a process that has passed after China threw Russia an economic life expectancy during the Ukraine war.
Russia’s ability to sell liquid natural gas in the world market has also been hampered by Western sanctions against its arctic energy facilities and cistern fleets.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, alluded to those talks in an interview broadcast after he met Putin in Moscow last week.
“Who doesn’t want to have a world where Russia and the United States are doing good things together in a cooperative way together? Thinking about how to integrate their Arctic energy policies, share lanes, maybe send LNG … to Europe together,” Witkoff said.
On Thursday, Putin complained that Western countries had “chosen a way of confrontation” by suspending Russia from the Arctic Council, the cooperation body for the region, and banned scientific, ecological and cultural talks.
But he accepted Russia’s ambitious plans to develop the region through the expansion of its northern ports, building a trade fleet backed by nuclear -energy ice, and the expansion of the Northern Sea road would require foreign power work.
Putin said Western countries were welcome to join Russia in “Global Arctic Projects with the participation of Friendly States”. Moscow would seek to develop its partnerships with foreign companies for shipbuilding and buying outside ships, he added.
The five European members of the Arctic Council – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – have shown little interest in reading Russia while its troops are still in Ukraine.
But some elderly Nordic diplomats admit that Russia’s exclusion has ended to the “extraordinary Arctic” era in which the far north was isolated from geopolitical tensions elsewhere.
Additional reporting by Richard Milne
