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Russia has expressed serious concern over the deployment of NATO forces to Greenland, a mineral-rich Arctic island that US President Donald Trump has threatened to seize.
France, Sweden, Germany and Norway announced on Wednesday that they would send military personnel to Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, as part of a reconnaissance mission. The decision followed talks in Washington involving US, Danish and Greenlandic officials, which failed to curb Trump’s ambition to take control of the island.
Trump has argued that Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, is critical to US security, warning that China or Russia could otherwise gain influence there.
“The situation developing in the high latitudes is of serious concern to us,” the Russian embassy in Belgium, where NATO is headquartered, said in a statement released late on Wednesday. The embassy accused NATO of increasing its military presence under what it described as the false pretext of a growing threat from Moscow and Beijing.
Neither the Russian foreign ministry nor the Kremlin has commented on the deployment. However, both NATO and Russia have expanded their military activities in the Arctic in recent years, as melting sea ice opens the region to shipping routes and mineral exploration.
Trump’s remarks have placed unusual strain on NATO, an alliance that has underpinned Western security since the Second World War. According to the Russian embassy, internal disagreements within the bloc over Greenland are making consensus-building increasingly unpredictable.
