Russia said on Thursday that NATO’s talk of Russia and China being a threat to Greenland was a myth designed to artificially whip up hysteria and that what it called the Western alliance’s policy of escalating confrontation in the Arctic was extremely dangerous.
Russia on Thursday rejected NATO’s claims that Moscow and Beijing pose a growing threat to Greenland, calling the narrative a “myth” aimed at stoking unnecessary fear and justifying what it described as a dangerous escalation of military confrontation in the Arctic.
Moscow’s comments come against the backdrop of increasingly blunt remarks from US President Donald Trump, who has said Washington should take control of Greenland for national security reasons. The United States already maintains military facilities on the island, a Danish overseas territory that occupies a strategically important position in the Arctic.
Trump has argued that Denmark is failing in its responsibility to defend Greenland, an assertion strongly rejected by Copenhagen. Denmark maintains that it is capable of ensuring the island’s security and has criticised suggestions that sovereignty over the territory should change hands under the guise of defence concerns.
Tensions have risen further as several European countries, including France, Germany, Norway and Sweden, have begun deploying troops to Greenland. The deployments are being presented as a gesture of support for both Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and Copenhagen, as Denmark prepares to hold a military exercise on the island. The troop movements have added to an already charged atmosphere in the High North, where strategic competition has intensified in recent years.
In a statement reflecting mounting unease, Russia said it was watching developments around Greenland with “serious concern” and stressed the need to keep the broader Arctic region peaceful and stable. Moscow warned that steps taken by NATO risk undermining that stability and could push the region towards heightened confrontation.
“NATO has embarked on a course of accelerated militarisation of the North, building up its military presence there under the fictitious pretext of a growing threat from Moscow and Beijing,” Russia’s embassy in Belgium said in a statement to the Izvestia newspaper. Belgium hosts NATO’s headquarters, making it a focal point for diplomatic messaging aimed at the alliance.
Russia framed NATO’s actions as part of a broader Western strategy that, in its view, exaggerates external threats to justify expanding military footprints closer to Russian territory. It argued that portraying Russia and China as dangers to Greenland serves political purposes rather than reflecting actual security realities in the Arctic.
At the same time, Moscow highlighted what it sees as a contradiction in Western criticism. Russia itself has, in recent years, moved to reopen and modernise a wide network of military bases across the Arctic, citing the need to protect its national interests and infrastructure in a region that is increasingly accessible due to melting ice. Western countries have frequently pointed to these steps as evidence of Russian militarisation.
By pushing back against NATO’s narrative, Russia sought to underline its position that the Arctic should remain a zone of cooperation rather than conflict. It warned that continued military build-ups and sharp rhetoric risk creating a self-fulfilling spiral of tensions in a region where major powers’ interests increasingly intersect.
”We can see that the alliance is using high-profile statements from Washington on the Greenland issue solely to promote an anti-Russian and anti-Chinese agenda,” it said, listing recent European statements on Greenland’s defence.
”The instigators of these bellicose plans appeal to mythical challenges that they themselves generate,” the embassy said, noting that even Western diplomats with access to NATO intelligence briefings cited in the media had acknowledged that no Russian or Chinese submarines had been spotted near Greenland in recent years.
”This exposes the artificiality of the hysteria that is being whipped up,” it said.
The statement did not directly criticise Trump, however, at a time when he remains a key interlocutor for Moscow in efforts to reach a peace deal in Ukraine. It turned its fire instead on NATO as an institution and on its European member states, which it also accuses of blocking peace efforts in Ukraine.
”We consider the alliance’s policy of escalating confrontation in the Arctic to be counterproductive and extremely dangerous,” the embassy said.
With inputs from agencies
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