MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. AI simulations show that the United States would need no more than 10,000 troops to occupy Greenland, and between 50 and 60 countries receive an invitation to join US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace initiative. Meanwhile, in Syria, the Kurds refuse to surrender to the new government. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Izvestia: AI model shows US would need no more than 10,000 troops to take Greenland
On January 20, Copenhagen decided to add another 58 troops to a 60-strong unit that was deployed to Greenland earlier. Denmark’s armed forces are practicing defense tactics and simulating potential clashes, said Chief of the Royal Danish Army Peter Boysen.
Meanwhile, Operation Arctic Resilience is ongoing on the island, involving 24 foreign troops from six countries - Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, France and Sweden. Germany withdrew its contingent from Greenland after it was stationed there for 44 hours. Berlin’s hasty decision may have been sparked by tariff threats from Washington against countries that have deployed their militaries to the island. And there are already some 200 Danish soldiers in Greenland and as many US troops. The United States sent NORAD aircraft to its Pituffik Space Base on Tuesday in a move that the North American Aerospace Defense Command said was coordinated with Denmark.
In the event of an annexation of the island, an AI model showed, Washington would need to take just five major cities in Greenland under control. Overall, the Americans would have to control 13 airports, six ports, energy infrastructure facilities and mines on the island. For that, the United States would need between 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers at the initial stage, according to the neural network.
That number would be enough to maintain order and "prevent excess incidents among supporters of independence," Andrey Kortunov, scientific director of the Russian International Affairs Council, stated, assuming no counter-intervention on the part of a European amphibious assault on the island.
Sergey Lebedev, a researcher at the HSE Institute for Global Military Economics and Strategy told Izvestia that the island’s troops would offer little resistance to an obviously larger force.
However, a more realistic look at the situation suggests a near-zero likelihood of the use of force on the island - a NATO territory and a special part of Denmark, World Military Economy and Strategy Institute’s Deputy Director Nikolay Novik told Izvestia. "There will be a deal, most likely. The Americans would be allowed to mine for resources and deploy bases there. And they will also negotiate some kind of special status like with Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or Guam, which are US unincorporated territories. And obtaining that status would take a few years," he surmised.
Vedomosti: Assessing Trump's Board of Peace, its potential members and purpose
Russia has received specific US proposals regarding a draft charter for the Board of Peace initiative that US President Donald Trump expects to sign off on on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday. With the initiative, Russia's top diplomat said, Washington is assembling a group of countries for targeted collaboration across various fields. Lavrov also emphasized that the current US administration underlines the importance of not only bringing as many countries as possible together to overcome challenges but also of taking their legitimate interests into account.
By January 20, open data suggest, between 50 and 60 countries, including Russia, Germany, Japan, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on behalf of the European Union received an official invitation from Trump to join his Board of Peace as members or founding members. The exact number of Trump’s invitees has not been disclosed though. By the time this newspaper issue went to press, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had received an invitation from the US, while neither the US Department of State nor the White House has denied this information. Apart from the United States, Albania, Argentina, Belarus, Canada, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, Uzbekistan and Vietnam have confirmed their participation.
Trump’s Board of Peace looks more like a populist project inspired by his personal ambitions as a peacemaker, disrespect of liberal globalism and anger at the Nobel Committee for not awarding the Peace Prize to him last year, Pavel Koshkin, senior research fellow at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies, told Vedomosti. By establishing such a board, he explained, Trump would like to close the books on the first year of his presidency in an independent and emphatic manner. This is why Trump announced the initiative ahead of the first anniversary of his inauguration, the expert continued. While the Board of Peace could be called an alternative to the United Nations, it also looks like a play by Trump and his associates to capitalize on Gaza reconstruction, Koshkin argued.
Trump would indeed like his initiative to be an alternative to orthodox institutions like the UN or, more specifically, certain regional formats, Dmitry Novikov, an associate professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the Higher School of Economics, agreed. However, "the lack of a specific rationale behind the structure of a potential organization could lead to a motley crew that would not foster efficiency and, therefore, prevent it from taking the form of a major international institution," he concluded.
Vedomosti: Kurds refuse to surrender to new Syrian government
The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the Kurdish administration in North and East Syria, has announced that it will continue its resistance to the country’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. The SDC accused forces loyal to al-Sharaa of violating ceasefire agreements.
Late on January 18, after the Kurds retreated from Aleppo across the Euphrates, al-Sharaa announced reaching agreement with commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi. The latter arrived in Damascus on January 19 and asked for five days "of consultations," Al Jazeera reported.
On Tuesday, Foza Yusuf, a senior member of the Democratic Union Party, the ruling party in Rojava, described the terms put forward by al-Sharaa as "a return to the pre-2011 situation" when the Kurds had no rights as an ethnic group, even as on January 16 al-Sharaa granted the Kurds permission to have their native language studied in Kurdish-majority governorate schools, celebrate Nowruz and file for Syrian citizenship in a decree on their cultural autonomy. For the first time since Syria gained independence in 1946, the Kurds were formally given broad cultural rights, but not everyone finds that sufficient, Andrey Zeltyn, senior lecturer at the School of Asian Studies at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), explained to Vedomosti.
Battles in Kurdish-controlled areas continued on Tuesday as mobilization was announced in predominantly Kurdish areas, with local leaders calling on Kurds living abroad, including in Turkey, Iraq and Europe, to join the armed fight.
The United States, meanwhile, is not willing to invest their resources to support the Kurds, Zeltyn noted. Washington wants Syria to stabilize and restore its territorial integrity, said Lev Sokolshchik, researcher with the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics. This would make it easier for the United States to promote its economic interests in the region, and the Americans would also hope to use Syria as a counterweight to Turkey, he added.
Izvestia: Russia ready to pump oil, gas back to Europe
The Russian Energy Ministry said it could restart commercial energy exports to Europe using original routes as it commented on the recent escalation of tensions in trade and political relations between the United States and Europe, putting the EU’s energy security in jeopardy. "Russia could reopen commercial energy supplies via traditional routes" should Europe remove anti-Russian sanctions and there be an interest from European counterparties, the ministry told Izvestia.
Reviving gas exports to the EU in pre-sanctions volumes would require bringing the relevant export infrastructure, including the two sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines, back online, the ministry added.
According to Tamara Safonova, CEO of NAANS-Media, an independent think tank that specializes in the oil and gas sphere, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did not take the risks of a potential escalation of tensions in bilateral relations or continued trade wars into account in 2025 when she signed a deal with US President Donald Trump to purchase energy from the United States. "Multiple former US allies could use the US president’s double standards as a pretext to review their trade policy and strategy for cooperation in the fuel and energy sphere and influence the see-sawing global oil pricing mechanism," she argued.
Igor Yushkov, a leading analyst at the National Energy Security Fund, said Russian gas exports to Europe could grow, with transit through Ukraine reopening, if the tariff war escalates further.
However, Yury Stankevich, a member of the State Duma’s Energy Committee, told Izvestia that it was clearly too early to discuss a revival of large-scale energy cooperation between the EU and Russia. "Hopefully, over time, a pragmatic approach will win out , because purchasing oil and gas from across the ocean, importing oil products from India, etc., is economic blindness and an evolutionary dead end for the European Union," he concluded.
Kommersant: Gold hits new record high amid geopolitical tensions
Spot gold prices set a new record high rising above $4,700, or a 9.5% increase, since the start of 2026, mostly in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s aggression against Venezuela and his confrontational rhetoric regarding Greenland and Europe. Demand has spiked for gold both among central banks and institutional investors.
Other precious metals, too, are rising, with platinum and palladium prices growing between 14% to 15% to $2,400 and $1,700 per ounce, respectively, in early 2026. Silver climbed by more than 33% to a new historical high of $95 per ounce.
"Geopolitical drivers are pushing risk premiums higher while supporting demand for the metal," Ruslan Klyshko, director of the wealth management department at AF Capital brokerage, told Kommersant.
In the next few weeks, where gold goes will depend on how the situation around Greenland unfolds. "If tensions persist or even escalate, gold prices could soar to $5,000 per ounce amid high demand from central banks and private investors," Nikita Berdikhin, a leading investment analyst at Go Invest, believes. Should tensions ease, prices could correct lower to $4,200 per ounce, he said.
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