러시아 외무장관 라브로프는 트럼프의 그린란드 획득 시도가 NATO 내 위기를 노출하고 서방의 도덕적 우위를 훼손한다며 만족감을 표시했다. 이는 러시아의 크림반도 합병을 정당화하는 논리와 유사하며, 우크라이나 지원을 약화시키는 결과를 초래하고 있다.
Key Takeaways
•러시아는 트럼프의 그린란드 획득 시도를 NATO 분열과 서방의 도덕적 권위 약화를 보여주는 사례로 평가하며 만족감을 표출
•그린란드 분쟁은 우크라이나에 대한 서방의 관심과 자원을 분산시켜 덴마크의 대우크라이나 지원 감소로 이어짐
•러시아는 크림반도 합병을 그린란드 사태의 유용한 선례로 제시하며 제국주의적 행위를 정당화하는 논리를 제공
•트럼프의 행동은 서방의 주권·영토 보전 원칙 주장을 무력화시켜 러시아의 우크라이나 정책에 유리한 환경 조성
Moscow lets it be known how it feels about Trump’s threats against Denmark. Sergey Bobylev / Sputnik / AP Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, can rarely be described as looking happy. His brick wall of a face and somber voice, worn down by many years of smoking Marlboros, have earned him the nickname “Minister No.” But when the question of Greenland came up yesterday at his press conference in Moscow, Lavrov seemed to come alive, even permitting himself a smile and a chuckle as he talked about President Trump’s imperial designs on the Danish territory and the response from NATO allies.
“That alliance,” Lavrov said, “is going through a test of what it’s good for.” Some of its members, he continued, “have gone so far as to ask themselves whether it’s time to break it up, because one NATO country is preparing to attack another NATO country.” That confrontation has resulted in the “deepest of crises” within the alliance, Lavrov said. “I just want to highlight that the Euro-Atlantic idea of ensuring security and cooperation has discredited itself.”
For Lavrov and his boss, Vladimir Putin, the standoff over Greenland has offered plenty of reasons for schadenfreude. It has distracted the Europeans from Russia’s war against Ukraine, forcing Denmark and its allies to use their military resources to guard Greenland from the United States instead of defending against the Russian threat. As Lavrov pointed out, the dispute has also raised the prospect of a rupture within NATO, the alliance that Putin has made it his mission to dismantle.
Appearing earlier today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump tried to calm the fears of a military clash among NATO allies. The U.S. “won’t use force” to seize Greenland, he said, while issuing a vague warning that if Denmark and the Europeans do not acquiesce to his demands, “we will remember.” (Trump later said on Truth Social that he had reached a deal with NATO but details were scant.)
Trump’s recent threats against Greenland have sounded like poetic justice to the Russians because they erode the moral high ground from which the West has defended Ukraine. By making a nakedly imperialist claim on the territory of a faithful American ally, Trump has made it far easier for Putin and Lavrov to justify Russia’s imperialist claim on Ukraine. Western appeals to the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the autonomy of nations start to ring hollow when the country that anchors the West sets out to violate those principles so brazenly.
From the Russian perspective, all of this lines up with Europe’s history and foretells its destiny. “Greenland is not a natural part of Denmark,” Lavrov said yesterday. Since the early Middle Ages, he argued, Greenlanders have been the playthings of imperial powers. They became the subjects of the Kingdom of Norway in the 13th century, then fell under the Danish crown in 1814. It would therefore be natural, Lavrov suggested, for another colonizer to take Greenland from the Danes. “It’s a colonial conquest, and the fact that the local residents there are used to it and feel comfortable—that’s a different question,” Lavrov said.
The Russian rendering of history aligns with the excuses Putin made for his war against Ukraine. He argued at the start of the invasion, in 2022, that Ukraine had always been a natural part of Russia and did not deserve to exist as an independent state. Although Lavrov stopped short of urging the United States to go ahead and take what it pleases from Denmark, he offered Trump a guide for doing exactly that.
He referred to the Russian seizure of Crimea from Ukraine as a useful precedent for an American takeover. In some sense, Lavrov has a point. Russia’s conquest of Crimea in 2014 relied on the military base it had in that region of Ukraine. Russian troops, having removed the insignia from their uniforms, spilled out of that base and took positions across Crimea, daring the Ukrainian troops stationed on the peninsula to resist. Few of them did.
In recent days, the U.S. has likewise reinforced its contingent on the American base in western Greenland, ostensibly as part of a “long planned” set of military exercises. Russia’s actions in Ukraine would offer Trump a road map for securing control of that territory should Trump ultimately decide to resort to force. After Russian forces took over Crimea, the Kremlin staged a referendum to legitimize the land grab. The ballot did not offer the people of Crimea the option of remaining part of Ukraine. The choice was between Crimean independence or Russian annexation. According to the Kremlin’s count, more than 97 percent of them chose the latter. The referendum was condemned as a sham around the world, but it gave Putin the veneer of legality he wanted before absorbing the entire region into Russia that spring.
Lavrov made the link to Greenland explicit in his remarks: “As President Trump said, Greenland is important to the security of the United States. Crimea is no less important to the security of Russia.”
For Ukraine, the most harmful consequence of the conflict over Greenland has been the way it has absorbed the West’s attention and diverted its resources. In his remarks in Davos, Trump said he plans to meet Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the peace process. The Ukrainian leader hoped to sign a new “prosperity plan” during the summit with Trump and European leaders that would be worth an estimated $800 billion. The Greenland controversy derailed those plans. “Nobody is in any mood to stage a grand spectacle around an agreement with Trump right now,” a European official told the Financial Times.
Trump’s choice of Greenland as his target has been particularly harmful to the Ukrainians because it has distracted one of their most committed European allies. Since the invasion in 2022, Denmark has contributed about $10 billion in aid to Ukraine’s defense through a fund created for that purpose. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also helped shape a system of support for Ukraine known as the Danish model, in which foreign allies pay directly for Ukrainian arms manufacturers to produce the weapons needed to fight the Russians.
“My key message to the U.S. is: Stick together with Europe,” Frederiksen told me in an interview last February, soon after Trump made his intentions to acquire Greenland clear to her by phone. The greatest threat to the West, she argued, will come from the alliance among Russia, Iran, and North Korea. “They hate us, and they are willing to destroy us,” she said. “These challenges will not disappear. So we are in a hurry now! We really have to ramp up production and spend much more on defense and security.”
The Danes, like much of Europe, see defending Ukraine against Russia as essential to their own security. But last month, as Trump’s threats against Greenland intensified, Denmark decided to reduce its aid to Ukraine dramatically, committing only about $1.5 billion in 2026, compared with $2.6 billion last year and nearly $3 billion the year before. The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to my request for comment about whether this decision was related to the need to defend Greenland from the Americans.
But the timing sends a clear message to Moscow: They need only to bide their time, and the West may tear itself apart. Toward the end of his rant about Greenland, that is what Lavrov promised that Russia would do. “A tendency toward crisis has built up within Western society,” he said. “Greenland is a clear example.” The diplomat could not seem to believe Russia’s luck. “In general,” he said, “it would have been hard to imagine that such a thing could happen.” On that point, at least, it would be difficult to disagree.
