Russia sold Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 million due to the difficulty of maintaining it. In today’s terms, this amount is roughly equal to $150 million when adjusted for inflation.
Alaska is a detached piece of the U.S. and is one of the fifty states constituting the country. On the other hand, it is only about 53 miles apart from Russia, separated by the waters of the Bering Strait.
The U.S. has the Air Force base and American Arctic military forces (USARAK) stationed. This mostly isolated land is also home to nuclear warheads to attack and defend against Russia.
The idea of getting Alaska back is not a recent motive. This was voiced at Duma in the summer of 2022 by the chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin.
Similar voices echoed in Russia in November 2023 through a lawyer very close to Putin, suggesting Moscow should consider an attempt to retake Alaska from the U.S.
This time, all such demands became official as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree declaring the sale of Alaska to the U.S. illegal.
The Bering Strait is an emerging maritime corridor that is becoming increasingly vital to the economic and national security interests of the U.S.
The Navy predicted the Bering Strait’s implication in 2013 when it published its U.S. Navy Arctic Roadmap: 2014–2030, proclaiming that Russia’s Northern Sea Route, the Bering Strait would become increasingly crucial for seaborne trade between Europe and Asia.
All Chinese maritime traffic utilising Russia’s Northern Sea route will have to transit the Bering Strait to travel between the Chinese port at Dalian and the port in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
