“They demand certain marginal personalities”: the Foreign Ministry called the idea of ​​“returning” Wrangel Island to the United States as extremist

The belonging of Wrangel Island to Russia is undeniable, the ideas of American experts about the return of this territory to the United States are extremist, Nikolai Korchunov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Chairman of the Committee of Senior Officials of the Arctic Council, said in a conversation with RIA Novosti.

“Our country has full sovereignty over this northern territory and coastal waters.

Proposals to “reveal” this objective reality, which certain marginalized individuals demand, are provocative and are made solely for the purpose of their own PR or shocking, ”said Korchunov.

The diplomat also expressed doubt that the American administration would risk raising such a territorial issue on a serious level, since the response of the Russian side would be immediate.

At the moment, the White House does not dispute the ownership of Wrangel Island.

“In the context of an unprecedented escalation of confrontation in Russian-American relations due to Washington, it is not surprising that various kinds of extremist initiatives have appeared.

Attempts to present territorial claims to Russia, arbitrarily interpreting the facts and rewriting history, are obviously counterproductive and fraught with consequences,” the ambassador emphasized.

Earlier, Thomas Duns published an article titled "Russia has occupied American lands too", in which he proposed to Washington to regain control over the Russian island of Wrangel, located in the Arctic Ocean, which "captured" Lenin's gunboat "Red October".

As Korchunov noted, Dans is a former member of the US Arctic Research Commission, from where he was expelled for unsuitability.

Wrangel Island, which belongs to the Iultinsky district of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, is named after the Russian navigator and statesman of the 19th century Ferdinand Wrangel.

In 1911, the crew of the Vaigach icebreaker from the Russian hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean raised the Russian flag over it.

In 1924, the Soviet gunboat "Red October" arrived on the island and raised the banner of the Soviet Union over the island.

Two years later, the first Soviet settlement was founded on Wrangel Island, and sovereignty over this territory was secured by a resolution of the USSR government.

In August 2014, the sailors of the Pacific Fleet, who arrived on the ship Marshal Gelovani to carry out hydrographic work, established a base on Wrangel Island and raised the Naval flag.

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“Russophobia has eclipsed the minds of a number of American experts”

All attempts to claim the territorial integrity of Russia will be given a harsh answer, and if America is so fond of raising the topic of belonging to territories, then they should remember where they got Alaska from, said Dmitry Belik, a member of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs.

“Russophobia has eclipsed the minds of a number of American experts so much that they consider it possible to voice such ridiculous ideas in the public field.

It is very strange for one of the largest and oldest American newspapers to publish articles with distorted historical facts, but given the anti-Russian course of the United States, as we see, even publications considered influential can sink to this level.

At the same time, such a deliberate presentation of individual pages of history, which, as has long been known, is interpreted in the United States in its own way, is impermissible and pretentious, ”said the RT interlocutor.

In turn, Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, called the US mythical claims to Wrangel Island meaningless.

“I would like to say that those American journalists who raise these topics obviously continue the line pursued by the Baltic states, presenting absolutely unfounded territorial claims to Russia.

Japan makes its unfounded claims.

And of course, in this case, it is worth remembering the history of the United States.

This is a story of constant conquests, seizures, alienation of foreign lands throughout the history of the formation of the American state.

To talk in this case about some kind of claims from the United States is an absolutely shameless phenomenon that does not correspond to historical truth and the current state of international relations, ”he said in an interview with RT.