“When they [U.S. lawmakers] are trying to appropriate our assets abroad, they should know that we also have something to claim,” Volodin said during a meeting with Russian officials on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. Tensions between the US and Russia have been rising for months amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and unprecedented sanctions imposed by Western countries in response to Putin’s invasion. Russia has gone so far as to threaten direct conflict with the US and NATO, fueling fears that the war could spread beyond Ukraine’s borders. Volodin’s comments suggest he could support Russia targeting Alaska in retaliation for freezing Russian assets, a move that could set off a fierce military conflict between Russia and the US Alaska was once part of Russia until the U.S. bought the territory on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million, according to the Library of Congress. Referring to then-Secretary of State William H. Seward, some criticized the deal as “Seward’s folly” or “Seward’s icebox,” but criticism softened after the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896. Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and speaker of the State Duma, issued a stark warning on Wednesday that Russia has something to claim from the US: the state of Alaska. Above, Volodin speaks during the Council of Lawmakers at the Tauride Palace on April 27 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Contributor/Getty Images Alaska did not officially become a US state until January 1959, the same year Hawaii also gained statehood, according to the Library of Congress. Although Russia’s ownership of Alaska ended more than a century ago, the country and state share a close geographic proximity. Russia and Alaska, via Russia’s Big Diomede Island and Alaska’s Little Diomede Island, are less than three miles apart at their closest point in the Bering Strait, according to Alaska’s official website. Mainland Alaska and Russia are 55 miles apart at their closest point between Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula. Volodin isn’t the only Russian to talk about the prospect of Russia taking back Alaska from the US Duma member Oleg Matveychev told Russian state television earlier this year that Russia should seek “the return of all Russian property, that of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and present-day Russia, that has been seized in the United States States, and so on.” When asked if this included Alaska, Matveychev replied that it did. Responding to Matveychev’s comments at the time, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy tweeted: “Good luck with that! Not if we have anything to say about it. We have hundreds of thousands of armed Alaskans and military members who will see it differently.” Newsweek contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry, the US Department of Defense and Volodin through the State Duma for comment.
