A thought-provoking new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today first notes President Putin warningly observed: "Everyone knows about the US plans to annex Greenland...You know, this may surprise someone only at first glance...And it is a deep mistake to believe that this is some kind of extravagant talk of the new American administration...Let me remind you that by 1868, the Alaska purchase was being ridiculed in American newspapers...It was called madness, an 'ice box', and 'the polar bear garden' of Andrew Johnson, then-US president...And his Greenland proposals failed".

As the largest island in the world rich in untapped natural resources, this report notes, Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, not a country, with a population of about 56,000 who are full citizens of Denmark and, by extension, the socialist European Union, but is part of North America in the Western Hemisphere, that is controlled and protected by the United States.

In 1867, this report continues, President Andrew Johnson considered acquiring Greenland, but history now records: "Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing the United States would off-set the designs of Russia's greatest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain...The looming U.S. Civil War delayed the sale, but after the war, Secretary of State William H. Seward quickly took up a renewed Russian offer, and agreed to a proposal from Russian Minister in Washington, Edouard de Stoeckl, to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million...The treaty was signed on March 30, 1867...The U.S. Senate approved the treaty of purchase on April 9, and President Andrew Johnson signed it on May 28...Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867...This purchase ended Russia's presence in North America and ensured U.S. access to the Pacific northern rim...It added nearly 600 million square miles to the territory of the United States".

After World War II, this report details, President Harry Truman suggested offering $100 million to Denmark to buy Greenland—a suggestion that lay dormant for 80 years until President Donald Trump assumed power, who proclaimed about Greenland this past week: "We have to have the land because it's not possible to properly defend a large section of this Earth – not just the US – without it...So we have to have it, and I think we will have it", and yesterday he posted the video message "America Stands With Greenland".

At the same time President Trump posted his video message to Greenland yesterday, this report notes, Vice President J. D. Vance arrived at the American military base in Greenland where he declared: "We do not think military force is ever going to be necessary...What we think is going to happen is that the Greenlanders are going to choose, through self determination, to become independent of Denmark, and then we're going to have conversations with the people of Greenland from there".