Trump's hunger for territorial expansion finds favour with a like-minded leader in Moscow

'Putin has railed against US hegemony since 2007, and he finally has a US president who is just as derisive of the postwar order as he is'

- Andrew Roth

As JD Vance visits Greenland, the Trump administration has won an unlikely endorsement for America's first potential territorial expansion since 1947: Vladimir Putin.

Speaking at an Arctic policy forum in the northern Russian city of Murmansk on Thursday, Putin presented a more comprehensive case than any US official yet for Donald Trump's plan to annex Greenland, crafting a historical argument that sounded suspiciously convenient in terms of Russia's own territorial designs on Ukraine.

The US's plans to take control of Greenland "may surprise someone only at first glance, and it is a deep mistake to believe that this is some kind of extravagant talk by the new American administration", Putin began. "Nothing of the sort."

The US had plans to purchase Greenland in the 1960s but Congress would not support the deal, Putin said. The US "protected the territory from Nazi occupation" in the 1940s and made an offer to buy the island, which was rebuffed. Even going back to 1910, the US had designs on Greenland, the Russian leader noted, calling the US plans "serious" with "long-standing historical roots".