Russia is using Trump’s Greenland rhetoric to boost its Crimea claims

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Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland is “not a joke.”

At least one person, Russian President Vladimir Putin, is taking it very seriously. Moscow’s propaganda machine is working overtime to reinterpret Trump’s statements in Russian favor.

Greenland’s strategic importance is based on multiple factors, all of which are tied to counterbalancing growing Russian and Chinese influence. The territory provides proximity to Arctic shipping lanes, which China and Russia seek to dominate. It hosts Pituffik Space Base, an installation that is critical for missile defense and surveillance. It also boasts untapped depths of rare earth elements necessary for technological innovation and the manufacturing of key defense technologies.

Trump has argued that in exchange for control over Greenland, the United States will offer Greenland security “for the protection of the free world.” The president claims Denmark cannot provide this. Denmark, however, has maintained that Greenland is “not for sale.” Its citizens have voted decisively against becoming a part of the U.S. Its prime minister has spent the past weeks meeting urgently with European and NATO leaders to garner support and has committed to increasing military spending in the North Atlantic by $2 billion.

As tensions over the island increase, the Kremlin is taking advantage of Trump’s pointed rhetoric to launch a new strain of propaganda warfare. This approach allows the Russian government to try to legitimate its own illegal occupation of Crimea and simultaneously paint the U.S. as an immoral hegemon seeking to subjugate the world. Though these claims come into conflict with each other, consistency has never been Russia’s goal. Chaos is the goal.

Since Russia’s sham Crimean independence referendum of 2014 and subsequent military occupation, Putin has sought to solidify the sui generis nature of annexation by highlighting the right of Crimeans to self-determination. In fact, in his speech following the region’s incorporation into Russia, he quoted the U.S.’s Written Statement on Kosovo, which it submitted to the United Nations International Court, aiming to draw an equivalence to Kosovo’s hard-fought independence movement. The Kremlin insisted that there had been over 90% support for the change from a majority of the population and that, therefore, it was simply administering “the will of the people.” However, these numbers were debunked soon after, when Putin’s own so-called “Human Rights Council” accidentally posted the real election data. They demonstrated only approximately 30% voter turnout, with support for integration into Russia at only 50%.

Russia’s efforts at manipulation remained largely unsuccessful, with the U.N. General Assembly voting in 2014 by a margin of 100-11 not to recognize the change of status. The Kremlin has, in the face of this resistance, turned to crafting false parallels, seeking to equate Greenland’s right to resist European control with that of the Crimean public to rise against Ukrainian authority.

RIA Novosti, for example, a state-owned news outlet, positively compared Greenland possibly choosing independence and turning away from Europe toward the “American world” to the events before and after the referendum. Moscow 24, another state enterprise, quoted a Greenlandic MP stating that Greenland has the same right to self-determination that the residents of Crimea and Donbas do, one which outweighs the territorial integrity of Denmark or Ukraine. Russian publications such as “Free Media” ( Свободная Пресса ) argue that a U.S.-backed Greenland referendum could serve as a much-needed precedent, immediately closing the question of who owns Crimea.” Crimean officials have even gone so far as to offer their experience in organizing referendums to Greenland. From this angle, Russia has sought to exploit, even support, the most extreme versions of Trump’s grandiose ideas for its own benefit.

At the same time, other parts of the Russian media machine have taken advantage of the opportunity to ratchet up anti-American sentiment. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, has framed Greenland as an issue of sovereignty and respect for local populations. By setting this foundation, Lavrov is undoubtedly preparing to condemn Trump for trying to act against Greenlandic public opinion. Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko stated that Russia “cannot rule out the possibility of [the U.S.] violating international law in advancing to the Arctic,” insisting that “we have already had such examples when the U.S. tried to expand its reach.”

Danish intelligence has even reported that, in Trump’s first term, Russian intelligence sent Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) a forged letter, ostensibly from the Danish minister of foreign affairs, asking for help financing a referendum. Putin has already taken to calling out U.S. hegemony, announcing with ally Xi Jinping the start of a “new era” of cooperation meant to advance a multipolar world order. Clearly, the Kremlin is hoping to leverage the Greenland narrative to substantiate its supposedly anti-imperialist pronouncements. Many commentators, like state TV host Vladimir Solovyov, have been celebrating Trump’s directness, hoping for a chance to point out Western hypocrisy and expansionist ambitions.

It is important to remember that regardless of what Putin’s cronies might claim, there is no equivalence between diplomatic negotiation and military conquest. While Trump may talk a big game about Greenland, his actions remain bound by international law. If the U.S. were to invade Greenland, that would mean they had invaded a NATO ally, triggering Article 5, and the entire military alliance would crumble. This is an unacceptable foreign policy outcome that would wreak havoc on American national security, and it is therefore politically infeasible for any sitting president, no matter how popular. America’s system of checks and balances is built to prevent such largesse.

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Russia, on the other hand, feels no such obligation. It has embraced stolen referendums, military occupation, and brutal suppression of dissent as key foreign policy practices, particularly since launching its war on Ukraine in 2022. As Moscow’s propaganda machine seeks to weaponize Trump’s words, we must not confuse fiction for fact.

After all, Russia wins precisely when common sense, morality, and the rule of law lose.

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