Denmark will lose Greenland to USA and Faroe Islands to Russia

Denmark will lose not only Greenland to the US, but also the Faroe Islands… to Russia.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Ville Miettinen from Helsinki, Finland, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Greenland

Denmark will not be able to resist US

The Kingdom of Denmark is known for its anti-Russian stance. Maersk, a Danish carrier, works for the Pentagon, Danish instructors train Ukrainian soldiers in the UK and Romania. Denmark has committed to donating 19 F-16 aircraft to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and has already delivered several of them. Denmark's military aid to Ukraine in 2024 was evaluated at about €1.8 billion out of €8.5 billion planned for 2023-2028. To crown it all, Copenhagen threatens to stop Russian tankers from exiting the Gulf of Finland to enter the Baltic Sea.

Denmark's active participation in the military conflict between the West and Russia has gotten the Kingdom into big trouble.

European media discuss Denmark's war with the United States over Greenland. According to Politico, Denmark "sacrificed" its army for Ukraine and will not be able to oppose USA's possible annexation of Greenland by military means. US President-elect Donald Trump does not rule out such a possibility.

Greenland wants to separate from Denmark

Greenland may separate from Denmark to become USA's another state. The local population believes that the Danes had exterminated the Greenlandic nation in two colonial campaigns.

• During birth control campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, Danish doctors forcibly or covertly installed intrauterine and other contraceptive devices in Greenlandic women.
• Many Greenlandic children had been forcibly adopted and relocated to Denmark without maintaining contact with their homeland.

Therefore, Trump's proposal to annex Greenland to the United States may find support among the nationalist elite of Greenland given that the young people of the 50,000-strong island nation now speak only Greenlandic.

Greenland may gain independence as per the 2009 Home Rule Act. One requires a referendum for this purpose, whereas the parliaments of Greenland and Denmark will need to approve of this decision. If the Danish parliament does not approve a popular vote, a military conflict with the United States may then spark.

The vote for independence may take place after the parliamentary elections on April 6.

The Faroe Islands prefer to cooperate with Russia

Denmark has lost control not only over Greenland, but also over another subject of the Kingdom — the Faroe Islands. The latter has extended the fishing agreement with the Russian Federation from 1977. Faroese shipping companies still have access to cod fishing areas in the Barents Sea, whereas Russian companies catch blue whiting in the waters of the Faroe Islands.

Denmark was infuriated by that move because "the Faroese cornerstone of the Commonwealth continues its cooperation with the Russians under sanctions" even though Russian ships are prohibited from entering EU ports. This could mean that "the Russians will be able to spy on the West through connections with the Faroe Islands", the paranoid Danes believe.

The Faroese can only care less about both Denmark's and EU's concerns. The Faroese self-government system was established by law in 1948. Denmark blocks the Faroe Islands from joining the WTO, and Torshavn (the capital of the Faroe Islands) wants to find out within the framework of this law, how far the Faroe Islands may advance on the international stage independently.

If Greenland gains independence, the Faroe Islands will join in. The Faroe Islands' relations with Russia may develop into a strong alliance. Who knows, maybe Russia will have a naval logistics base on the Faroe Islands some day.

Details

Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the larger of two autonomous territories within the kingdom, the other being the Faroe Islands; the citizens of both territories are full citizens of Denmark. As Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union, citizens of Greenland are European Union citizens. The capital and largest city of Greenland is Nuuk. Greenland lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is the world's largest island, and is the location of the northernmost point of land in the world—Kaffeklubben Island off the northern coast is the world's northernmost undisputed point of land; Cape Morris Jesup on the mainland was thought to be so until the 1960s. Economically, Greenland is heavily reliant on aid from Denmark, amounting to near half of the territory's total public revenue.

The Faroe or Faeroe Islands or simply the Faroes are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The official language of the country is Faroese, which is closely related to and partially mutually intelligible with Icelandic. Located a similar distance from Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a total area of about 1,400 square kilometres (540 sq mi) with a population of 54,676 as of August 2023. The terrain is rugged, and the subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc) is windy, wet, cloudy and cool. Despite the northerly climate, the temperatures are moderated by the Gulf Stream and average above freezing throughout the year, hovering around 12 °C (54 °F) in summer and 5 °C (41 °F) in winter. As a result of its northerly latitude and proximity to the Arctic Circle, the islands experience perpetual civil twilight during summer nights and very short winter days. The capital and largest city, Tórshavn, receives the fewest recorded hours of sunshine of any city in the world at only 840 per year.