And yet Putin has expressed his desire to take some states of the United States, and claim them as property of Russia. How does he justify that? Oh, he wants California? Well, it belongs to America. Before that, the Spanish built their missions upon the Southern parts of it, while Sutter had the North, and before that the native Americans had PARTS of it. Does he want Death Valley in the middle of summer. He’ll have to fight rattlesnakes for it.
Alaska was first settled by Russians so that's the only part he could have a claim, if you forget the fact that the Russian empire sold Alaska to America.
Yeah, in the Tucker Carlson interview. He spent the first 30 minutes going over his version of history and justifying his invasion. Basically, Ukraine made him invade them.
He was establishing an irredentist land claim, like fascists do. "We used to own this so we can invade, but no one else is allowed to use that logic against us >:("
The Kievan Rus was founded by Viking settlers, therefore by the Putin's own logic he should cede all of Russia east of the Urals to Denmark, Sweden and Norway while he's at it.
One could say it was, but just like with French Louisiana, it was more of a way of unloading claimed territory to a friendly emerging country which would make some use of it. It wasn't that developed and didn't have many perspectives.
Eh, guess French Louisiana is more massive. But the point stands.
