Russia and the United States should build a “Putin-Trump” rail tunnel under the Bering Strait to link their countries, unlock joint exploration of natural resources and “symbolize unity,” a Kremlin envoy suggested.
The proposal from Kirill Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy and head of Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, calls for an $8 billion construction project, financed by Moscow and “international partners,” to build a 70-mile (112-kilometer) railway and freight link in less than eight years.
Dmitriev, who helped spearhead a Russian charm offensive designed to revive ties between the United States and Russia, floated the idea Thursday night after Putin spoke by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump and agreed to meet in Budapest to find a way to stop the war in Ukraine.
Musk’s ‘boring company’ proposed as contractor
“The dream of a US-Russia link across the Bering Strait reflects a long-standing vision from the Siberia-Alaska Railway of 1904 to Russia’s 2007 plan. RDIF has studied existing proposals, including the US-Canada-Russia-China Railway, and will support the most viable ones,” Dmitriev wrote in X.
The Bering Strait, 82 kilometers (51 miles) wide at its narrowest point, separates the vast, sparsely populated Russian region of Chukotka from Alaska. Ideas to link them have been around for at least 150 years. The tiny Diomedes Islands, one Russian and one American, lie in the middle of the strait, just 2.4 miles (4 km) away.
Dmitriev, who struck up a relationship with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, and suggested that big American energy companies could join Russian projects in the Arctic, proposed that the tunnel be built by The Boring Company, an American tunneling company owned by American billionaire and sometime Trump ally Elon Musk.
“Imagine connecting the United States and Russia, the Americas and Afro-Eurasia with the Putin-Trump tunnel, a 70-mile link that symbolizes unity. Traditional costs are more than $65 billion, but @companyaburridaTechnology could reduce it to <$8 billion. Let's build a future together,” Dmitriev wrote to Musk on X.
There was no immediate public response from Musk or Trump. Beyond the tunnel itself, building and improving infrastructure on both sides of the strait would cost an enormous sum. Chukotka’s existing roads and railways are sparse at best.
Dmitriev said that during the Cold War a plan had been floated for a “Kennedy-Khrushchev World Peace Bridge” over the strait. He published a sketch from that time of the route it could have taken, with a graphic showing the route the new tunnel could take.
“RDIF has already invested and built the first railway bridge between Russia and China. The time has come to do more and connect the continents for the first time in human history. The time has come to connect Russia and the United States,” Dmitriev said.
