Amid the US calling for a takeover of Greenland for its security concerns, Russia has announced that they consider Greenland a part of Denmark.
This is the first time Moscow has directly opposed the US' attempts at a potential acquisition of the world's biggest island. It has said that the security situation surrounding the island was "extraordinary" from the perspective of international law.
Moscow said this week that its was unacceptable for the West to keep claiming that Russia and China threatened Greenland, and said that the crisis over the territory showed the double standards of Western powers which claimed moral superiority.
Maria Zakharova, the Director of the Department of Information and Press at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has slammed the 'rules-based international order', which is a philosophy propagated by the West, in the wake of the tensions surrounding Greenland.
In an X post, she said that the current scenario shows how flawed Denmark's "subordination" to the US is.
In a post on X, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia quoted Zakharova as saying, "Surrent tensions over Greenland sharply expose the failure of the West's so-called 'rules-based international order'. It is plainly visible that Copenhagen's long-standing policy of unconditional subordination to the US is fundamentally flawed."
Not only Russia, but also Denmark's NATO allies have sent troops to Greenland as a show of support to the country amid sustained US pressure.
Among the countries who have sent troops are France, Germany, and England. This moves comes after a high-level meeting between the representatives of Denmark and Greenland with US Vice President J D Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The talks brought a "fundamental disagreement" between how the US and its allies in Europe see the situation, as per a report by Al Jazeera.
However, the number of soldiers these countries have sent is symbolic rather than acting as a practical and viable deterrence to US military pressure. While France has sent 15 soldiers, Germany has sent 13 to the island.
The French mission has been described as a recognition-of-the-territory exercise with troops to plant the European Union's flag on Greenland as a symbolic act, as per Al Jazeera.
"The first French military elements are already en route", and "others will follow", French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday (local time) as French authorities said soldiers from the country's mountain infantry unit were already in Nuuk, Greenland's capital.
Meanwhile, Germany's Ministry of Defence said it was deploying a reconnaissance team of 13 personnel to Greenland on Thursday.
Denmark said it plans to increase its military presence in Greenland on Wednesday as the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers met with White House representatives in Washington DC, to discuss Trump's intentions to take over the semiautonomous Danish territory to tap its mineral resources amid rising Russian and Chinese interest.
