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.