Why is Russia so obsessed with Alaska?
The Bering Strait, which separates Russia and the U.S., with Alaska’s Seward Peninsula to the east and Siberia’s Chukotskiy Peninsula to the west, is seen in an image taken by NASA’s MISR satellite on Aug. 18, 2000. (NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology)
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The scene of the planned Aug. 15 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin — the U.S. state of Alaska — has played an outsized role in Russian propaganda and mythology.
The choice of Alaska for the summit has re-ignited imperialist narratives, with Kremlin propagandists emphasizing again that the peninsula used to be a Russian territory.
Some imperialist Russians have perceived the sale of Russian Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 as treason or a tragic mistake, while others have dismissed the transaction as illegal.
For years, Russian propagandists and officials have been obsessed with Alaska and called for returning it to Moscow. In their mindset, it is part of the mythology where Alaska, Finland, Poland, and other territories are "historical Russian lands" that were unfairly separated from the homeland.
A flurry of statements on 'Russian Alaska'
Yury Ushakov, a Putin aide, said on Aug. 9 that "Russia and the United States are close neighbors," and "it seems quite logical for our delegation to simply fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important and long-awaited summit of the two countries' leaders to be held precisely in Alaska."
"Incidentally, the economic interests of our countries intersect in Alaska and the Arctic, and there are prospects for implementing large-scale, mutually beneficial projects," he added.
Boris Pervushin, a lecturer at the Plekhanov Russian Economic School, went further. He told the Russian state news agency TASS on Aug. 9 that "Alaska was once Russian land, and now it is becoming a venue for direct dialogue between the two leaders without intermediaries, underscoring the special, partnership status of the talks."
Kirill Dmitriyev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and a top Russian negotiator with the U.S., spoke along the same lines on Aug. 9.
"Born as Russian America — Orthodox roots, forts, fur trade — Alaska echoes those ties and makes the U.S. an Arctic nation," he said on X. "Let us — Russia and the U.S. — partner on environment, infrastructure, and energy in the Arctic and beyond."
But Russian propagandists and officials had been obsessed with Alaska long before the planned Putin-Trump summit.
Dmitry Medvedev, a flamboyant ex-president and now deputy head of Russia's security council, said in 2024 that "according to a State Department representative, Russia is not getting back Alaska, which was sold to the U.S. in the 19th century."
"This is it, then," he quipped. "And we've been waiting for it to be returned any day. Now war (with the U.S.) is unavoidable."
Major Russian TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said in 2024 that Finland, Warsaw, the Baltics, Moldova, and Alaska should be "returned to the Russian Empire."
Olga Skabeyeva, another major TV propagandist, said the same year that Russian aircraft had approached the borders of "our Alaska."
Billboards with the slogan “Alaska is ours!” started appearing in the Russian Federation. This one is in Krasnoyarsk.
— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) July 7, 2022
photo: Vladimir Vladimirov pic.twitter.com/Q9Hj6gYDfA
Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian parliament's lower house, said in 2022 that Russia could reclaim Alaska if the U.S. seizes Russian assets abroad.
The issue has even entered Russian mass culture.
In 1992, the Russian pop band Lyube released a song called "Don't fool around, America." The song called on the U.S. to return Alaska to Russia and has been popular in the country ever since.
Roots of obsession
Russia's obsession with Alaska goes back to the 18th century.
Alaska was discovered by the Russian explorer Ivan Fedorov in 1732, and Russian fur traders flocked to the North American coast. The Bering Strait, which separates Russia from the U.S., still bears the name of Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian explorer who made the first landfall there in 1741.
Russia established the first permanent settlement in Alaska in 1784 and sent missionaries there to convert natives to Orthodox Christianity. Alaskan Creoles, an Orthodox group of mixed Russian and native Alaskan descent, still live on the peninsula.
Contrary to the propaganda myth that Russian colonization was peaceful, the colonizers' relations with Alaskan natives were often tense. Many Aleuts were enserfed, and Tlingits fought Russians in the Battle of Sitka in 1804.
Apart from Alaska, Russia also established Fort Ross in California in 1812 and Fort Elizabeth in Hawaii in 1817 — an object of patriotic pride among Russian imperialists.
As colonization proceeded, the costs of keeping Alaska outweighed the benefits Russia derived from it.
Maintaining North American settlements was expensive, and profits from fur trade were falling due to overhunting and competition with other colonial powers.
Alaska was far away from European Russia, exhibiting signs of imperial overstretch and presenting logistical challenges.
Russia was also reeling from the effects of the Crimean War, in which it had been defeated by Britain and France in the 1850s. Alaska was militarily vulnerable and would have been difficult to defend.
As a result, Russian Emperor Alexander II decided to sell Alaska to the U.S. for $7.2 million in 1867 — equivalent to around $156 million today.
Russian imperialists have mourned the loss of Alaska ever since.
Russian propaganda has come up with the false narrative that Alaska was not sold but leased for 99 years, although there is no evidence to back this up. According to the myth, the Soviet Union decided not to take the peninsula back in 1966.
Another myth circulated in Russia is that the country never received the gold for Alaska, as it allegedly sank in a sea storm while being transported by ship.
Reasons for Alaska rhetoric
Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Russia expert at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, linked the renewed rhetoric on "Russian Alaska" to the fact that "Putin is not in a position of strength."
"He wanted this meeting (with Trump) for a long time," Nizhnikau told the Kyiv Independent. "He has to accept it because he wants to avoid (Trump's) ultimatum and keep the dialogue. But he still needs to project strength, saying that 'we are doing it kind of on our terms and also are ready to put this type of psychological pressure on the American side."
Nizhnikau said, however, that Russia's Alaska narratives were not a serious attempt to take the peninsula back but just propaganda that caters to the Russian imperialist public.
He also said that the rhetoric on Alaska's Russian past reflects Russia's obsession with the U.S. Kremlin propagandists have often presented the U.S. as Russia's main foe, blamed Washington for all of Russia's problems, and portrayed major events as part of an epic struggle between Russia and the U.S.
"I think it's bravado for the domestic public because they are talking about (the annexation of Ukraine's) Crimea this way, they can repeat and can also do it for Alaska," Nizhnikau said. "But (there is also) an obsession with the Americans."
