Vladimir Putin is threatening an Arctic war as tensions grow ahead of US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Greenland.

He said Russia will station more military personnel in the Arctic and his country would defend its interests in the region amid Donald Trump’s push to take control of the autonomous Danish island.

‘We are talking about serious plans on the American side with regard to Greenland. These plans have long-standing historical roots,’ Putin told an Arctic forum in the northern city of Murmansk.

‘This may surprise some, only at first glance,’ said the Kremlin dictator, who seeks the Trump’s backing for his own claims on Ukrainian territory. ‘It is a profound mistake to believe that these are some kind of extravagant talks of the new American administration. Nothing of the sort.’

Putin said Russia is worried that ‘NATO countries in general are increasingly designating the Far North as a springboard for possible conflicts’, with Russia monitoring the situation and preparing an appropriate response.

‘It is obvious that the role and importance of the Arctic both for Russia and for the whole world is growing. But unfortunately, geopolitical competition, the struggle for positions in this region, is also intensifying,’ he added.

Putin appeared to give his blessing to Trump to make a land grab for Greenland – and even hinted the US President might grab Iceland, too.

He said: ‘In fact, the United States had such plans back in the 1860s. Even then, the American administration was considering the possibility of annexing Greenland and Iceland. But this idea did not receive support from Congress at the time.’

This comes as JD Vance is set to visit Greenland with his wife Usha on Friday – making him the most senior US official to visit the territory amid a growing war of words following threats from Donald Trump to take the island over.

Ahead of the visit, the Vice President suggested that the self-governing Danish territory has not received enough defence support from Copenhagen, arguing that global security is at stake.

‘Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world,’ he said in an online video.

In an apparent jibe after a comment he made about Europe ‘free-loading’ off the US for its defence was revealed on Monday, Vance added: ‘Unfortunately, leaders in both America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long.

‘That’s been bad for Greenland, it’s also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction, so I’m gonna go check it out.’

President Trump has irked much of Europe with claims that the US will get control of the mineral-rich territory ‘one way or another’, with tensions ratcheting up as leaders from Greenland and Denmark condemned the US approach as ‘aggressive’.

Against this backdrop of widespread backlash against Washington, Denmark has taken changes to the US delegation’s itinerary as a diplomatic victory.

The VP’s decision to visit a US military base Pituffik in northern Greenland, rather than doing a tour of the country, has removed the risk of violating potential diplomatic taboos by sending a delegation to another country without an official invite

The Vances will visit the base instead of Usha Vance’s previously announced solo trip to the Avannaata Qimussersu dogsled race.

‘I have to speak diplomatically here, but in many ways it’s a masterful spin to make it look like they’re escalating when really they’re de-escalating,’ Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Danish broadcaster DR earlier on Wednesday.

But Løkke also said it was ‘positive’ that the ‘Americans have canceled their visit among Greenlandic society. ‘They will only visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that.’

President Trump has irked much of Europe with claims that the US will get control of the mineral-rich territory ‘one way or another’, with tensions ratcheting up as leaders from Greenland and Denmark condemned the US approach as ‘aggressive’.

Greenland’s Prime Minister this month declared ‘enough is enough’ in response to Trump’s threat to dispatch soldiers to annex the island. 

‘We have a couple of bases on Greenland already and we have quite a few soldiers. May be you will see more and more soldiers go there,’ Trump threatened on March 13. ‘We have bases and we have quite a few soldiers on Greenland.’ 

Mute Egede summoned fellow political leaders to discuss a plan to beef up their rejection of Trump’s plan. 

‘The US president has once again aired the thought of annexing us,’ Egede said in a statement. He added: ‘Enough is enough.’

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who will be the next prime minister after his Demokraatit party won Greenland’s parliamentary election, also turned on Trump. 

‘Trump’s statement from the US is inappropriate and just shows once again that we must stand together in such situations,’ he said.

‘It’s obvious that the United States will continue to systematically advance its geostrategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic,’ Putin said as he said Russia would expand its operations in Greenland.

Putin vowed to boost his military presence in the region. He also wanted to see an expansion of tourism in the Arctic, where he has plans to exploit vast mineral wealth.

Putin, who is keen to ramp up commerce via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) through Arctic waters as Russia shifts trade towards Asia and away from Europe because of Western sanctions, said Russia had never threatened anyone in the Arctic, but was prepared to defend its interests.

Foreign partners prepared to cooperate with Russia in the region would be guaranteed a good investment return, he said in a major speech in the northern city of Murmansk.

Putin called for an expansion of Russia’s northern ports and the building of a merchant fleet in the Arctic, supported by new-generation icebreakers including nuclear-powered ones.

But he said Russia’s domestic capabilities were insufficient for this at the moment, and that it would also require buying vessels and interacting with foreign shipbuilders.

The Arctic holds fossil fuels and minerals beneath the land and the seabed that could become more accessible with global warming. 

It is also an area of military competition, where defence analysts say Russia has built up its presence much faster than the West by reopening Soviet-era bases and modernising its navy.

Greenland, which is seeking independence from Denmark, is strategically located between North America and Europe at a time of rising US, Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic, where sea lanes have opened up because of climate change.

Denmark has rebuffed Trump’s calls to take over the island and says the people of Greenland have shown they do not want to be part of the United States.

By acquiring Greenland, Trump said he would ensure continued US access to Pituffik Space Base – despite there being no current threat to stop access.

‘We need Greenland for national security purposes,’ Trump repeatedly said after declaring he would not rule out the use of military force or economic pressure in the form of brutal tariffs on Denmark to seize control of the island.

Global warming is causing the ice in Greenland to retreat, opening up shipping lanes and access to incredible riches, making the region a new geopolitical and economic asset, with the US, Russia, China and others wanting in. 

Greenland boasts valuable rare earth minerals needed for telecommunications, as well as uranium, billions of untapped barrels of oil and a vast supply of natural gas that used to be inaccessible but is becoming less so as the ice is retreating. 

Many of the same minerals are currently being supplied mostly by China, so other countries such as the United States are interested, Ohio University security and environment professor Geoff Dabelko said. 

Three years ago, the Denmark government suspended oil development offshore from the territory of 57,000 people.

The world’s largest island is now ‘central to the geopolitical, geoeconomic competition in many ways,’ partly because of climate change, Dabelko said.

Off Greenland’s shores, the US Geological Survey estimates there could be 17.5 billion undiscovered barrels of oil and 148 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, though the remote location and harsh weather have limited exploration.  

Around the Arctic Circle, there’s potential for 90 billion barrels of oil.

Aside from oil, gas or mineral, there is a ‘ridiculous’ amount of ice in Greenland that plays a key role in regulating global weather, according to climate scientist Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine.

If that ice melts, it would reshape coastlines across the globe and potentially shift weather patterns in such a dramatic manner that the threat was the basis of a Hollywood disaster movie.

Greenland holds enough ice that if it all melts, the world’s seas would rise by 24 feet (7.4 meters). Nearly a foot of that is so-called zombie ice, already doomed to melt no matter what happens, a 2022 study found.

Since 1992, Greenland has lost about 182 billion tons (169 billion metric tons) of ice each year, with losses hitting 489 billion tons a year (444 billion metric tons) in 2019.

‘Think of Greenland as an open refrigerator door or thermostat for a warming world, and it’s in a region that is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe,’ said New York University climate scientist David Holland. 

Greenland will be ‘a key focus point’ through the 21st century because of the effect its melting ice sheet will have on sea levels, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Serreze added: ‘It will likely become a bigger contributor in the future.’ That impact is ‘perhaps unstoppable,’ Holland said.

Greenland is part of the Danish realm along with the Faeroe Islands, another semi-autonomous territory, and has its own government and parliament.  

Greenland’s 57,000 residents got extensive home rule in 1979 but Denmark still handles foreign and defense policies, with an annual subsidy of $670 million. 

Its indigenous people are not wealthy, and vehicles, restaurants, stores and basic services are few.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen addressed Trump’s intent to buy Greenland in January, saying that she did not believe that the US will use military or economic power to secure control over the island.

She also called the US Denmark’s ‘most important and closest ally’ and repeated that she welcomed the US taking a greater interest in the Arctic region, but that it would ‘have to be done in a way that is respectful of the Greenlandic people’.

‘At the same time, it must be done in a way that allows Denmark and the United States to still cooperate in, among other things, NATO,’ Frederiksen said.

But this it not the first time an American president suggested buying the island.

There were two failed attempts by US to purchase it: President Harry Truman tried to buy it for $100 million in 1946 and the State Department inquired about it in 1867.