One hundred and fifty-seven years after the sale of Alaska to the United States by the Russian imperial power, would Vladimir Putin, mired in Ukraine, want to open a new front or provoke his powerful American neighbors? According to a false rumor that spread like wildfire on X and TikTok, the Russian president signed a decree declaring the sale of Alaska illegal in 1867.
As proof, many Internet users exhume a decree signed by the hand of the Russian head of state and which can be found on an official website. Problem: this decree does not mention Alaska or any sale described as “illegal”. We take stock.
FAKE OFF
This text, dated January 18, aims to designate a public company, “the company managing real estate abroad”, as a recipient of subsidies in order to financially cover the “costs linked to the search for real estate of the Russian Federation, the former Russian Empire, the former USSR”. The company is also responsible, in this text, for bearing the costs associated with “the proper registration of the rights of the Russian Federation to existing federal real estate of the Russian Federation”.
At no point does the text speak of an “illegal sale” of Alaska in 1867. “Russia will allocate funds to an effort to find, register and ensure legal protection of Russian property abroad, including including the property of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire”, summarizes the Russian press agency Tass, in a dispatch published in English the day after the publication of the decree. The agency appears more precise in Russian: she adds that since 2015 two organizations were already in charge of “searching, registering and protecting foreign real estate in the Russian Federation”.
A response to the Finns?
Should we, however, see in this text, which mentions an effort to research the real estate of the former Russian Empire, an allusion to Alaska? “It’s an information war,” explains 20 minutes Galia Ackerman, writer specializing in Russia. We understand what we want. The former Russian Empire can also mean Poland, Finland…”
The text could also be a response to the Finns and Latvians. Last year, Finnish authorities seized a Russian center, remember the Russian edition of the magazine Forbeswhile the Latvian parliament passed a bill to seize and sell another Russian center.
In Russia, voices are occasionally raised to demand the return of Alaska to the motherland. ” There is a children’s song who says that Alaska and the Kuriles [des îles disputées entre la Russie et le Japon] are ours,” emphasizes Galia Ackerman. The song, popularized by an MP from Vladimir Putin’s party in 2017 and dedicated to “Uncle Vova” [Vladimir Poutine]had received a mixed reception.
The United States also has its opinion on the matter. “I think I can speak for everyone in the American government when I say that it [Vladimir Poutine] won’t get it back,” retorted the spokesperson for the State Department on Monday, closing the door to any Russian inclination, supposed or real, on Alaska.