There’s about 60km between modern day Russia and Alaska, and plenty of troops are already stationed (and were at the time) on its eastern border. Alaska would provide a lot of resources, and it could absolutely be guarded.
But, at the time, Alaska was seen as nothing but barren piece of cold land, not really useful for anything.
But Russia also has enormous fossil fuel reserves. They just sold off a colony that was more expensive to guard than it was lucrative to exploit.
Questionable.
There’s about 60km between modern day Russia and Alaska, and plenty of troops are already stationed (and were at the time) on its eastern border. Alaska would provide a lot of resources, and it could absolutely be guarded.
But, at the time, Alaska was seen as nothing but barren piece of cold land, not really useful for anything.
There’s over 5000km between Vladivostok and Anchorage. Virtually nobody lives in the interior.
It still is. The mineral wealth is extremely difficult to access due to the weather.