A petition that seeks to put Alaska back under Russian control has garnered more than 18,000 signatures in just a few days — about a fifth of what’s needed to capture a formal White House look.

The petition, called “Alaska Back to Russia,” was created by a resident of Anchorage who declined to list his name, but instead gave only the initials of S.V., United Press International reported.

The petition was first circulated last week and so far, it’s garnered more than 18,000 signatures. If a total of 100,000 sign on by April 20, the Obama administration will supposedly issue a formal response.

The petition — a bit grammatically challenged — nonetheless states: “Groups Siberian Russians crossed the Isthmus (now the Bering Strait) 16-10 thousand years ago. Russian began to settle on the Arctic coast, Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Archipelago. First visited Alaska August 21, 1732, members of the team boat St. Gabriel under the surveyor Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fedorov during the expedition Shestakov and DI Pavlutski 1729-1735 years … Vote for secession of Alaska from the United States and joining Russia.”

The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867.

A similar petition from Texas that sought secession from the United States received more than 100,000 signatures, UPI reported. Then, the White House responded: “Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States ‘in order to form a more perfect union’ through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self government. They enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot — a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all. But they did not provide a right to walk away from it.”

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