Suspilne: “We are people, not ice,” Greenlanders say as Trump’s threats upend their lives

Ukraine's public broadcaster Suspilne sent a team to Nuuk, Greenland, in late January to report on how the island's residents are coping with US President Donald Trump's repeated demands to acquire their homeland—a self-governing Arctic territory of NATO member Denmark with no army and a population of 57,000.

For weeks, Trump had called the world's largest island a "piece of ice," floated military force to seize it, and pushed annexation legislation. Journalist Olena Kurenkova and her team went to hear what Greenlanders themselves make of the superpower attention. What they found was not geopolitics but raw anxiety—a nation of fishermen, hunters, and artists trying to process being reduced to a bargaining chip.

Panic buttons and school buses

Sermersooq Mayor Avaaraq Olsen told Suspilne that for several weeks her constituents had not felt safe. People stopped her in shops to ask what to expect. Children refused to board school buses—afraid soldiers would come, communications would be cut, and they would never find their parents.

The fear cut across generations. Frederik Fuuya Larsen, director of Greenland's National Museum, described what happened when a storm knocked out electricity across Nuuk just before the Suspilne team arrived.

"My brother, who lives in a nursing home, was so scared that he pressed the panic button. He thought American troops were approaching."—Frederik Fuuja Larsen, archaeologist and director of Greenland's National Museum

Art as protest

Inuit artist Lisbeth Karlin Poulsen channeled the dread into craft. She fashioned a traditional beaded necklace—a nuilarmiut—in the colors of the American flag and made it tight enough to leave bruises on her throat. She photographed the marks and published a series called Disrespect.

"I couldn't breathe freely then, because I didn't know what this annexation meant. Should we be afraid or laugh?"—Lisbeth Karlin Poulsen, Greenlandic visual artist

Thousands marched under the slogan "Hands off Greenland" in Nuuk and other cities—remarkable for an island where people rarely discuss politics even with family. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned that a US military assault would end NATO. Nine alied nations have since deployed troops under Operation Arctic Endurance.

The Russia angle Greenlanders can't ignore

Moscow has been watching closely. The Kremlin exploited the standoff to justify its own territorial seizures in Ukraine, arguing that if Washington claims land for "national security," so can Russia. Danish intelligence revealed that a forged Russian letter sent to US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas in 2019 may have planted the idea of Greenland in Trump's mind. Denmark has since listed the United States as a security threat for the first time.

Edward Arnold, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, called the NATO fracture over Greenland "an absolute gift to Putin." And the people of Nuuk, like the people of Kyiv, may very well pay the price for a great-power game played over their heads.