US Vice President JD Vance is on Friday due to tour a US military base in Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation amid President Donald Trump's bid to annex the strategically-placed, resource-rich Danish territory.

Trump insisted on Wednesday that the United States needed the vast Arctic island for national and international security, and has previously refused to rule out the use of force to get it.

"We have to have it," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he considers Trump's plans "serious".

"It is a deep mistake to think that this is some extravagant talk from the new American administration. It is nothing of the sort," Putin said.

Danish and Greenlandic officials, backed by the European Union, have insisted that the US will not get Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen denounced plans by a US delegation to visit the Arctic island uninvited -- for what was initially a much broader visit to Greenlandic society -- as "unacceptable pressure" on Greenland and Denmark.

Greenlanders -- a majority of whom oppose US annexation, according to a January poll........

© International Business Times