- Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Russia could seek to reclaim Alaska from the US one day.
- "Let America always remember: there is a part of its territory that is Russia — Alaska," he said.
- The US purchased Alaska from the Russian government for $7.2 million in 1867.
A Russian official this week threatened the US over the freezing of Russian assets, urging it to remember that Alaska was once part of Russia's territory.
"Let America always remember: there is a part of its territory that is Russia — Alaska," Vyacheslav Volodin, a Putin ally and speaker of the Russian parliament's lower house, said on Wednesday, according to multiple media outlets.
"When they attempt to appropriate our assets abroad, they should be aware that we also have something to claim back," Volodin added in remarks reported on by the Associated Press and Russian publication RBC News.
Per RBC News, Volodin also referenced a suggestion made by State Duma Vice Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy that a referendum could be held in Alaska on the matter.
The US purchased the territory of Alaska from the Russian government in 1867. At the time, the US signed a check for $7.2 million to pay for Alaska, along with a Treaty of Cession that confirmed the territory's acquisition.
Alaska now commemorates Alaska Day every year on October 18, marking the day that the territory was transferred from Russia to the US. Alaska was admitted to the Union in 1959.
In other hawkish comments made on Wednesday, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, posted a long tirade on Telegram in which he slammed "any attempts to create tribunals or courts" to investigate Russia's actions in Ukraine.
"It won't work with Russia, they know it well," Medvedev wrote. "That's why the rotten dogs of war are barking in such a disgusting way."
Warning that it would be "absurd" to try to "punish a country with the largest nuclear potential," Medvedev also slammed the US for attempting to "spread chaos and destruction across the world for the sake of 'true democracy.'
"The entire US history since the times of subjugation of the native Indian population represents a series of bloody wars," Medvedev wrote, referencing other US actions such as its bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II and its involvement in the Vietnam War.
"Was anyone held responsible for those crimes? What tribunal condemned the sea of blood spilled by the U.S. there?" Medvedev asked.
Medvedev's comments were not the first time the Russians threatened Ukraine's allies with nuclear warfare. In May, a Russian propagandist warned that a nuclear strike could wipe out the UK and Ireland.