Russian Lawmaker Threatens Alaska With Missile Strikes

Russia State Duma Deputy Andrey Gurulyov recently threatened to attack Alaska with an array of different missile strikes.

While appearing on Russian state-run TV, Gurulyov, host Olga Skabeyeva and other Russian commentators spoke about attacking different targets in the U.S. including the Lone Star State, but Gurulyov chimed in and said, “Texas doesn’t need to be attacked. We have a strategic nuclear force that holds America’s territory. Let me remind you, there’s Alaska across the strait,” according to subtitles by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs.

“There are our operational Iskander missiles, ballistic, cruise missiles are quite capable of scouring Alaska to the ground,” Gurulyov said. “It doesn’t take much, a couple of brigades will suffice.”

When another commentator chimed in and asked why Russia would attack Alaska, Skabeyeva responded by saying “to make them feel scared.”

The comments by Gurulyov and Skabeyeva come amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which has lasted over a year with intense fighting between the two nations in several different parts of Ukraine.

As the war has continued, the U.S. has repeatedly condemned Russia and President Vladimir Putin, while also supplying Ukraine with an array of different military assistance, from missiles, tanks, drones and air defense systems.

On the other hand, Putin and Russia have also criticized the U.S. for their assistance to Ukraine. Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current member of Putin’s Security Council warned that the world will become more “dangerous” if more weapons are supplied to Ukraine.

“And the more destructive these weapons are, the more likely the scenario becomes of what is commonly called a nuclear apocalypse,” Medvedev said, according to the Russian state-run news agency, TASS.

This is not the first time Russian commentators have spoken about Alaska since the ongoing war began. The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867.

“The Congress of Vienna [of 1814-1815] conceded that Warsaw belongs to the Russian Empire. The Congress of Vienna conceded that Finland belongs to the Russian Empire. I agree to return not to the Helsinki boundaries, but at least to the borders of the Congress of Vienna,” Yevgeny Satanovsky, the president of Russia’s Institute of the Middle East, said in February while appearing on state-run TV. “Alaska is ours again.”

Similarly, in July Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Russian state Duma responded to U.S. sanctions against Russia and said, “When they [U.S. lawmakers] attempt to appropriate our assets abroad, they should be aware that we also have something to claim back.”

In March, Gurulyov suggested Russia should “wipe [Britain] off the face of the earth”, calling them the “main bastard” and “instigator” of the Russia-Ukraine war as one of Ukraine’s top allies.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry and U.S. State Department via email for comment.