Russian TV Eyes California After Alaska Claim

A Russian TV pundit has questioned whether Russia could claim territory now in California, following claims that a recent move by President Vladimir Putin gave the Kremlin grounds to reclaim Alaska.

Putin signed a decree late last week allocating funding for the search, registration and legal protection of Russian property abroad—which included property in its former territories as the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union.

While the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War think-tank noted that the "exact parameters of what constitutes current or historical Russian property are unclear," the new property management agency's remit could include Alaska, vast swathes of eastern and central Europe—including in countries that are now NATO allies—as well as parts of central Asia and Scandinavia.

The declaration prompted prominent Russian military bloggers to suggest Russia should re-stake its claim in Alaska—which was bought by the U.S. in 1867 from Russia and became a state in 1959.

On Monday, the State Department brushed off suggestions that Putin might use the decree to claim the sale of Alaska illegitimate.

"Well, I think I can speak for all of us in the U.S. government to say that certainly he's not getting it back," spokesperson Vedant Patel said during a press briefing.

Responding to this, Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and Putin lackey, said: "This is it, then. And we've been waiting for it to be returned any day. Now war is unavoidable."

Now, Russian propagandists have gone further and suggested that the territorial claim could also extend further down along the West Coast.

According to a translation by Anton Gerashchenko, a former Ukrainian internal affairs minister, in a television program on Monday evening, Tigran Keosayan—who is married to state broadcaster Russia Today's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan—said during a discussion of the issue: "By the way, part of the California coastline was once Russian too. Yes. Are we going to get it?"

He added: "We'll take care of our Alaska. It's not up to the U.S. Department of State to decide whether Russia gets the state or not; it's up to a Russian referendum."

Any Russian claim over California is perhaps more tenuous than a claim over Alaska. Russians were known to have established an outpost called Fortress Ross, near San Francisco, in 1812, but left it in 1841. According to historical records, there were at most a hundred Russians living there.

Newsweek approached the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment on Tuesday.