Greenlanders share a common language with some of Siberia’s indigenous peoples, Vitaly Milonov has argued
The Danish autonomous territory of Greenland should join the Russian Federation because its indigenous people and Russia’s Inuit population speak related languages, Russian lawmaker Vitaly Milonov has suggested.
Milonov is known for his staunch support of “traditional Russian values” and vocal opposition to what he calls Western “degeneracy,” including LGBT propaganda and the “child-free” ideology. He has often made headlines with controversial ideas, such as a call for shutting down all sex shops in Russia and bombing Ukraine with the confiscated sex toys.
His latest remarks follow a slew of controversial statements by US President Donald Trump about plans to annex Greenland, despite firm rejection from both the island’s pro-independence leader, and Copenhagen.
“We have heard Donald Trump’s statements that Canada is, in fact, the poorest, most impoverished province in America, completely dependent on the United States. And the United States itself is in the deepest economic and political crisis, which arose as a result of Joe Biden’s rule,” Milonov said in an interview with Russian media outlet Gazeta.ru, published on Tuesday.
This situation, he claimed, leaves Russia as “the only normal state with a stable economy and political system” to support indigenous Greenlanders, whom he described as a “common ethnic group” with Russia’s Inuit population. Both groups, he argued, “speak a dialect of the same language.”
According to UN data, around 70% of Greenland’s roughly 60,000 residents speak Greenlandic, an Eskimo-Aleut language. Linguists at Cambridge University’s language center note that Greenlandic is most closely related to the Yupik languages spoken in Siberia.
“Greenland could become a new subject of the Russian Federation. For example, as the Greenlandic People’s Republic,” Milonov proposed. He further claimed that the territory needs Russian protection and support, which it has allegedly been deprived of under “the heel of the Danish occupiers, who themselves are already morally inbred.”
Greenland, a former Danish colony, was granted home rule in 1979. Its Prime Minister, Mute Egede, reiterated earlier this month that the island seeks independence, stating that a referendum is in the works but without specifying a timeline.
“Greenland is for the Greenlandic people. We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American,” Egede said at a press conference, addressing Trump’s earlier proposals to purchase or annex the island.
