The United States did not buy Alaska - it was just an attempt by the Russian Empire not to lose face. Great Britain was about to attack the Russian Empire. In all the forecasts of this attack, Alaska would be lost. Therefore, we gave Alaska to the United States for 99 years - in fact, not with the desire to return Alaska and the proclamation of it as a US state (Alaska was not a US state, but was a leased US territory like Hong Kong to Great Britain) and triggered the Caribbean Crisis. But Khrushchev did not have the courage to carry it through. Similarly, in 1875, the Russian Empire transferred the Kuril Islands to Japan because Japan was then considered an ally - and Great Britain demanded the Kuril Islands. They were betrayed on an ongoing basis - but in 1905, it was the Japanese negotiators who announced the legal annulment of the Petersburg Treaty of 1875 in order to separate South Sakhalin from which Japan itself voluntarily renounced in 1875 and declared this in the Petreburg Treaty. This gave the USSR a reason to annex the Kuril Islands in 1945. Japan itself annulled the treaty giving it legal title to the Kuril Islands in 1905 in Portsmouth. This was done by Japanese Foreign Minister Komura Jutaro. Well, he was not very smart. :)
