At first, I thought this was just more Russian trolling of Western democracies but it is a bit more than that as Putin is also serving this up for domestic consumption, giving the ultranationalists something to talk about and further legitimizing the invasion of Ukraine. And it seems to be working. One of the larger Russian Telegram channels, Two Majors, suggested starting with Alaska.
"We suggest starting with Alaska," the Two Majors Telegram channel—which has more than 530,000 subscribers—wrote. Beyond that, the blogger wrote that the Kremlin should look to "Dnieper Ukraine, Bessarabia, the Grand Duchy of Finland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Central Asian states of Russian Turkestan, most of the Baltic provinces, and a significant part of Poland."
Source: Newsweek
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a new decree relating to Moscow's historic real estate holdings abroad, a move interpreted by ultranationalist bloggers as a foundation for future revanchism against Russia's neighbors—and even the U.S.
The decree, signed by the president late last week, allocates funds for the search, registration, and legal protection of Russian property abroad, including property in the former territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
This would include Alaska, swathes of eastern and central Europe, large chunks of central Asia, and parts of Scandinavia.
Russia's Foreign Ministry and its presidential administration's Foreign Property Management Enterprise are directed to carry out the work, ordered to find, register, and protect "property" in question.
Twitter reaction was as you'd expect. But not everyone is laughing.
Alaska's Governor has already made his opinion on the matter well-known.
But who knows? In the interest of world peace & harmony, perhaps President Trump will cede Alaska back to his dear friend.
Half of the US is already occupied by russia. They don't even need to invade the US when Trump is ready to give russia everything it wants. pic.twitter.com/4mYGafl3Zs
— Alex Dovbnya🇺🇦 (@alexmorrisut) January 21, 2024
Billboards went up in 2022 with this.