U.S. Could Take Back Remote Island Seized by Russia Nearly 100 Years Ago

The United States has a claim on a remote island that has been in Moscow's hands for nearly a century and where Russia reportedly wants to stage war games, a former U.S. Arctic commissioner has told Newsweek.

Wrangel Island is 270 miles northwest of Cape Lisburne, Alaska, in the Arctic Ocean in Russia's far east, between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea.

In October, the U.S. Air Force intercepted Russian bombers by Alaska's borders, highlighting the strategic significance of the island, especially at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Thomas Emanuel Dans, who was a commissioner of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission in 2021, said that there has never been any formal acceptance of Russia's claim to the island, which Moscow considers part of the Chukotka Autonomous territory.

"What's changed here has been the invasion of Ukraine and with it issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity are now front and center," Dans told Newsweek.

In 1881, U.S. Revenue Cutter Service Capt. Calvin Hooper and his crew landed on Wrangel Island where they raised the American flag. Hooper was the de facto governor of Alaska, which had been purchased by the U.S. from Russia 14 years earlier.

Dans said there is an extensive contemporaneous record of Wrangel—and the neighboring De Long Islands—being claimed as U.S. territory.

Wrangel saw its first group of permanent settlers in 1921 but in 1924 it was seized by Bolshevik henchmen on the Soviet gunboat Red October and the American settlers were arrested and detained, with some dying in captivity.

"It kind of creeped up on the eve of the [1917] Bolshevik Revolution. Russia made some claims to having discovered the island in 1911 and put this forth in 1916," he said.

But the U.S did not have diplomatic relations with Russia or the Soviet Union until 1933 and as such, "there's never been an acceptance of any other nation's claim to them."

There was talk in Congress around 1941 of establishing a U.S. airbase on Wrangel Island but the idea was shelved after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7 that year.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, former senators Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Jesse Helms (R- NC) told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee debate in 1991 they did not want the Russia boundary treaty to prejudice future American claims to the islands.

"There were a lot of different dynamics that went into that negotiation that resulted in that maritime boundary agreement," said Dans. "The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate, but it was never ratified by the Duma (Russian parliament)."

"So it's technically not a done deal. While there are diplomatic notes between the countries saying they are abiding by it—it's not a treaty in force."

The newspaper Kommersant reported on November 2 that Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources is looking to ease environmental restrictions on Wrangel which is under the protection of UNESCO.

Home to a Russian military base, the island, which is roughly the size of the Greek island of Crete, also hosts a huge population of polar bears, Pacific walruses and unique species of plants and migratory birds.

Greenpeace Russia has expressed concern at the environmental impact of the government's proposals, which include building on the land and allowing aircraft and helicopters to fly above it.

The ministry said that protected areas in Russia "should not create obstacles for the protection of the most important interests of the state in defense and national security," Kommersant reported, suggesting Wrangel's importance.

Also, the Northern Sea Route is becoming a thoroughfare for U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas to Asia, which would sail right past Wrangel and the De Long Islands, and Russia's control over the islands could help them dictate how that sea route is operated.

"The islands could be part of broader negotiations, to reach a settlement and restructure our relations with Russia through more of an omnibus deal," said Dans, who was also a former counselor to the under secretary for international affairs at the U.S. Treasury.

"The return of American land would be a very productive step," he said."Particularly as we're engaged in trying to restore Ukrainian sovereignty over their lands, and we have issues of our own with Russia."

A State Department spokesperson said that the U.S.-USSR Maritime Boundary Agreement signed on June 1, 1990, defines the maritime borders between the U.S. and Russia in the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea and northern Pacific Ocean.

"The negotiations that led to that agreement did not address the status of Wrangel Island, Herald Island, Bennett Island, Jeannette Island, or Henrietta Island," the spokesperson said, referring to the individual names of the De Long Islands.

The agreement also did not address Mednyy (Copper) Island or rocks off its coast in the Bering Sea.

"None of [these] islands or rocks were included in the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and they have never been claimed by the United States, although Americans were involved in the discovery and exploration of some of them," the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson told Newsweek in a statement that Moscow's sovereignty of Wrangel Island "is not disputed by the U.S. Administration" and that any "attempts to rewrite history, are obviously counterproductive and fraught with consequences."

"Our country has full sovereignty over this northern territory and coastal waters. We do not think that the authorities in Washington will take the risk of raising the territorial issue in relation to the Russian-American border on any serious level," the statement said.

Update 11/18/22, 7:20 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a statement from Russia's foreign ministry.

Update 11/17/22, 4:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a State Department response. The state abbreviation for former Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski has also been corrected.