President Donald Trump said Wednesday that “anything less” than US control of Greenland is “unacceptable,” arguing the United States needs the territory for national security purposes, which could in turn strengthen NATO.

Russia said on Thursday that NATO's talk of Russia and China being a threat to Greenland was a myth designed to artificially whip up hysteria and that what it called the Western alliance's policy of escalating confrontation in the Arctic was extremely dangerous.

Officials from Greenland and Denmark emerged from a high-stakes meeting to hit out at the president’s “unacceptable” demands.

Denmark’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” with U.S. President Donald Trump over the future of Greenland remained unresolved after high-level talks in Washington, even as Denmark and NATO allies moved to increase their military presence in the Arctic territory amid rising tensions.

U.S. President Donald Trump has made an American takeover of Greenland a focus of his second term in the White House.

Talk of the U.S. seizing Greenland has intensified amid heightened rhetoric from Trump following a U.S. military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend, and Trump's subsequent remarks that he would “run” the South American country.

Trump's comments come after Greenland’s Prime Minister said they would "choose Denmark" over the United States.

Greenlanders get heavily subsidized by Denmark, and any future mining boom will be costly.