Putin declares 19th-century Alaska sale to US illegal

Pilingui claims Alaska and declares its 19th-century sale illegal

The claim will not move a single meter of border. Anyone who has looked at a map knows this, and almost all readings of the matter repeat it: the United States will not share the American continent with Russia. The interesting part is not the viability, but the use. The thesis that the sale of Alaska was illegal is installed in the official Russian narrative during the election campaign and with an open war, turning an old 19th-century notarial deed into political ammunition.

From Crimea and Abkhazia to Alaska: the claim as a tool

Before Alaska, there was Crimea. And before that, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, the Kuriles, Georgia, and Armenia. The list of territorial disputes in which Russia has been involved functions in public conversation as an argument of authority: each claim is presented as another piece of the same discourse, that of inherited borders being revisable when convenient.

Some read a calculated pattern in that sequence, while others consider it simple diplomatic noise. The underlying problem is different: if the criterion is that a 19th-century sales agreement can be declared retroactively void, the inventory of revisable treaties becomes unmanageable. Russia is not asking for a territory for the first time; what changes is the argumentative framework.

Can the claim be sustained with the Ukraine war open?

Here the narrative breaks. The most repeated argument is pure military arithmetic: one who has failed to impose themselves in Ukraine hardly can pose a territorial demand on the first power of the American continent. The most repeated formulation is that they can hardly even reach Kiev, let alone claim Alaska.

Added to that is material wear. Some argue that the Russian army has squandered entire divisions trying to invade a country that is not among the great powers, and that the Russian eastern coast is exposed to drone attacks. The conclusion drawn from this reading is that the claim of Alaska is not a threat: it is a declaration without operational backing.

Florida, Louisiana, and California: the claims Spain did not collect

The Spanish parallel appears immediately. Florida and Louisiana passed to the United States without Spain receiving anything, and without firing a shot. It is even recalled that the Florida treaty was signed with Ferdinand VII in a state that conversation describes with sarcasm. From there jumps the obvious question: why does Spain not claim California, Texas, New Mexico, or even Florida?

A figure circulates that summarizes the grievance: two trillion euros or dollars from a loan linked to American independence, with an annual interest of 5%, which were never paid. Some add that Spain could indeed claim Pacific islands with more legal basis than Moscow, but does not do so due to lack of political will. Others lower the matter to a joke: Manhattan, Louisiana, and even the treaty signed by a king who was not in a condition to sign it. The same logic, applied to Washington, turns into humor.

Why now? The electoral calendar and nationalist narrative

The most shared explanation points to March. The claim fits with the Russian election campaign and serves to stoke nationalism before voting. It is described as another brindis al sol: sure, everyone says pechopalomadas, and one more changes nothing.

That is likely the point of greatest agreement. The claim is not read as a plan, but as domestic propaganda with a domestic audience. And it leaves an unspoken collateral effect: it normalizes the idea that a country can unilaterally ignore a 150-year-old treaty, something that serves Moscow much more in Crimea or the Donbass than in Anchorage.

What lies beneath the ice: resources and Arctic routes

If someone seeks an economic motive, it is in the subsurface. They mention the exploration of clathrates—gas hydrates on the seabed—as one of the lines of work already underway by other Pacific countries. Alaska is not just territory: it is an Arctic platform, gas, and a position that no state cedes out of sympathy.

A historical detail often forgotten: Canada did not exist as a sovereign subject when the operation closed. The territory was part of the British Empire, and one of the reasons given for the sale was to prevent the British from pressing on two fronts. Old maps do not support any current claim, but they explain why the operation was conducted as it was.