Putin Visits Russian Region Closest to US

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made his first visit to a region in Russia's Far East that shares a maritime border with Alaska.

State news agency Tass reported that the Russian leader arrived on Wednesday in the town of Anadyr, the capital of Chukotka, which is in the easternmost federal subject of the Russian Federation and is by the Bering Strait that borders the U.S. state.

Putin's predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, had made the only previous presidential visit to Anadyr, Russia's easternmost town, in 2008, Tass reported.

Alaska, was part of the Russian empire before it was purchased by the U.S. in 1867 for $7.2 million. Moscow has never formally asserted a territorial claim to the state but some Russian politicians have spoken about retaking Alaska following Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Tass noted that the temperature when Putin arrived was minus 25 C (minus 13 F) and that it was nine time zones away from Moscow. It is his first regional trip of 2024, having visited 20 regions and republics last year.

Putin traveled around Anadyr in an all-terrain vehicle, visited a greenhouse and met with local residents, to whom he announced state support for policies aimed to encourage people to have more children by providing tax exemptions for large families.

"The good news is that it is becoming fashionable here to have many children," Putin said.

His comments follow Russian media reports of the country facing a demographic crisis. State statistics agency Rosstat said that in a worst case scenario Russia's population could decline from 146 million to nearly 130 million by 2046.

Putin cited polls from 2022 that said 60 percent of men and 70 percent of women would like to have two or more children.

"This attitude towards a large family is constantly strengthening and growing," he said. "It is very important that the state supports such families."

Putin also announced the extension until 2030 of a program aimed at encouraging teachers to move to settlements of less than 50,000 people, which will help the education system in the sparsely populated Russian Far East.

He made other announcements about protecting Russia's indigenous languages and legislation that would allow those injured in his invasion of Ukraine to serve in the armed forces in another capacity.

Putin's visit to Chukotka comes ahead of the presidential election in March, which he is expected to win in a carefully choreographed ballot.

Update 01/10/24, 11:36 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.