Speech in Murmansk: These are Putin's interests in the Arctic

It is a journey, as Vladimir Putin appreciates, in short, but plump filled with appointments and opportunities, to comment on world events, as in a casual manner, to America, Ukraine and Arctic. Russia's President traveled to the Northwest Russian Peninsula Kola on Thursday, to Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle with 266,000 inhabitants.

The port city is one of the bases of the north fleet that Putin wants to strengthen, according to its message. In the presence of the president, a new nuclear subse boat called Perm is left to water. Putin emphasizes that it is the first to be equipped with new Zircon type chalk air bodies. He has been raving about this weapon for a long time because it can hardly be intercepted.

Boats like the Perm ensured that Russia could “protect its national interests”, also in the Arctic, says Putin. Sometimes in such speeches he refers to the tsar -wing rabbit that Russia has only two allies, the army and the fleet.

But now is a little different. The Russian President is just overturning his American colleagues. In Murmansk, Putin even signals his consent for a possible “annexation” of the North Atlantic Island of Greenland belonging to Denmark a few hours before the Perm Donald Trump trump.

It is no coincidence that Putin uses this word that applies to the Russian landing in Ukraine in the West, while Russia himself speaks of “reunification”. Because Putin wants to achieve that his conquests are recognized – and the only important player with whom this currently seems possible is Trump, who expresses extension evenings.

Putin offers a speech on a forum for the development of the Arctic. It is under the motto “In the north – life!”, Which, like a pious wish, looks like a decline in population and the emigration from regional centers such as Murmansk, which still had 473,000 inhabitants in 1991.

“Unfortunately,” says Putin, “the geopolitical competition, the struggle for positions” is also heading in the Arctic. All you have to do is mention the American “plans” to “connect Greenland”. However, the new government in Washington is not “extravagant conversations”. Rather, the United States had developed such plans in the 1960s in the 1960s. The government at the time “considered annexing Greenland and Iceland”, but the congress was against it.

In fact, the then US Foreign Minister William Seward said that it was “a serious consideration” to buy Greenland and Iceland from Denmark according to the pattern of Alaska, which was acquired by the Tsarist Russia in 1867. In Russia, in Russia, in Russia, not distant from the struggle with the “Hegemon” America, doubts about the legality of the Alaska business were sometimes expressed.

Now, in the light of approach to Trump, Putin is protecting the “acquisition” of the area against then internal American criticism, as well as the entire remaining “activity” of the then President Andrew Johnson, who reminds many of Trump.

“Nothing surprising” Putin also finds Trump's Greenland intentions because of a “triangle business” through which the USA, Germany and Denmark would have exchanged areas in 1910. At the time, the American ambassador in Copenhagen proposed that the USA should receive Greenland from Denmark and that Copenhagen should give two Filipino islands today, which could leave it to the German Empire in exchange for Nordschleswig. “The business burst at the time,” says Putin. But there are “serious plans on the American side” with “historical roots”, says Putin. “As far as Greenland is concerned, this is a question that affects two concrete states and has nothing to do with us.”

A statement, on the other hand, is reminiscent of the Putin of the times when Trump was not yet back in the White House and Moscow condemned every western emotion in the Arctic as a war driver. Namely when he says that one is “only worried about the fact that NATO countries generally are increasingly designing the far north to the marching area for possible conflicts”. However, behind Putin's encouraging understanding of Trump should also be the calculation that it would primarily use Moscow if a territorial dispute should look for an escalation within the western alliance.

Putin speaks of economic opportunities that arise from climate change in the case of the Arctic. In a warrior atmosphere, when visiting another “Archangel's K” Nuclear Unterseboot, Putin is convinced that it is convinced to defeat the Ukrainians militarily. There is “reason to assume that we will finish them,” he says. Trump really wants to end “this conflict”, says Putin and the USA is one of Russia's “partners” who tried to solve the “conflict” with “peaceful means”, together with China, the other Brics members and countries like North Korea.

In “Europe”, Putin says, “try to lead us around on the nose”, but “no more mistakes will be allowed to start too much trust in so -called partners”. In his words, Putin is about “ensuring Russia's security in a long, historical point of view” to its maximum goals for Ukraine and a reorganization of Europe. Every peaceful conflict resolution is greeted, Putin sums up, “but only not at our expense”.

Without going to the latest American advance for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, for which the Kremlin demanded far -reaching sanction elections on Monday, Putin stimulates that the Ukraine “under external administration” “under aegis” of the United Nations together with the United States, “even with European countries” and others. Then “democratic elections” should be held and a new government should be introduced “that can begin to negotiate with us about a peace treaty”.

This actually contradicts the Moscow line, which rejects peace troops with western participation. But now Putin is apparently primarily concerned with harming Kiev's position in Washington to present Ukraine as “failed state” and its government as illegitimate. Accordingly, his military of Ukraine once again accuses an attack on energy infrastructure on Friday, for which a ceasefire should apply to Trump's initiative: the gas measuring station “Sudscha” on the border with the West Russian course area was “in fact destroyed” with American Himars multiple rockets. So Moscow should want to ensure that Washington will again stop military aid for Kyiv.

At the same time, Putin justifies his attacking war, which was rejected to defense rings, in front of the Russian audience. Again, he complains about “Nazis, nationalists, as they are called in Ukraine”, especially the ASOW brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard, which is considered a “terrorist organization” in Russia.

In a corresponding process, a military court in Rostow on Don on Wednesday sentenced 23 Ukrainian prisoners of war in a trial between 13 and 23 years, eleven of them, nine women and two men, in absence, since they had previously been exchanged after more than two years of captivity.

Another prisoner, the 55 -year -old Olexandr Ischtschenko, died in custody, probably due to torture. Some men had served in the ASOW brigade years before the invasion, the women were cooks. “I saw bags over minds,” said the 29 -year -old prisoner Mykyta Tymonin in the process, “power wires on different parts of the body, broken ribs, pounded kidney, to death people, more than a year hunger, no medical help”, people are “rotten” on the arms and legs – although Putin recently said that Russia has “treated all prisoned soldiers”. Tymonin received 22 years in prison.

Towards the end of his Murman visit, Putin still meets young Arctic travelers who indulge in enthusiasm. “Vladimir Vladimirowitsch, a huge thank you to her for the whole field of incredible opportunities that the youth are open to the youth in our country,” says a student radiantly. “This is really incredible. There are no words to describe how wonderful our Arctic is.”