Russian President Vladimir Putin may be making inroads into eastern Ukraine, but he does not plan to replicate the incursion far to the east, in Alaska, because his country has enough cold land, according to mashable.com.
“What would you need Alaska for?” he said during a call-in program on state television, according to the website. “We live in a northern country, 70 percent of our territory is in the north. Alaska’s also the north. So let’s not get excited.”
Mashable says Mr. Putin reminded viewers that it sold off Alaska on the cheap during the 1860s.
The purchase negotiated by Secretary of State William H. Seward was known as “Seward’s Folly” at the time, although mining later revealed vast natural resources on the peninsula. It became the 49th state in 1959.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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