Media: Russia and China want to build an underwater tunnel under the Crimean Bridge

Russia and China are discussing the possibility of building an underwater tunnel under the Crimean bridge, which will be protected from attacks from Ukraine.

Russian and Chinese businessmen have secretly discussed plans to build an underwater tunnel that will connect Russia with Crimea, The Washington Post reports, citing messages intercepted by Ukrainian security services.

hoping to create a transport route that would be protected from attacks from Ukraine, according to reports intercepted by Ukrainian security services.

The talks, which included meetings in late October, were prompted by growing Russian concerns about the security of the 11-mile bridge across the Kerch Strait, which has served as a key logistics line for the Russian military but has been bombed twice by Ukraine and remains a vulnerable war target.

The talks underscore Russia’s determination to maintain its control over Crimea, the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014, as well as Moscow’s growing dependence on China as a source of global support.

Building a tunnel near the existing bridge will face enormous obstacles, according to US officials and engineering experts, who said the scale of the work, likely to cost billions of dollars and take years, had never been undertaken in a war zone.

But despite doubts about the viability of the plan, according to experts, Russia has clear reasons for its implementation. Having failed to achieve a decisive victory in the war, said Oleksandr Gabuev, an expert on Moscow-Beijing relations at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, Russia “faces the risk that Ukraine will try to disrupt the Kerch Bridge for years to come.” .”

Why is the Russian bridge to Crimea so important?

The project would also create political and financial risks for China, which has never officially recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea and whose companies could be trapped by economic sanctions imposed on Moscow by the United States and the European Union.

However, intercepted emails suggest that one of China’s biggest construction companies has expressed its willingness to participate. The messages were provided to The Washington Post by Ukrainian officials hoping to expose the project and potential Chinese involvement. The authenticity of the reports was corroborated by other information obtained separately by The Post, including corporate registration files showing that a Russian-Chinese consortium involving individuals named in the emails was recently established in Crimea.

Emails released by consortium officials in recent weeks mention meetings with Chinese delegates in Crimea. One from October 4 states that the Chinese Railway Construction Corporation CRCC is “ready to ensure the construction of railway and road facilities of any complexity in the Crimean region.”

CRCC, a state-owned company, has built many of China’s largest road and rail networks and has established significant ties to Russia in recent years with projects including the expansion of the Moscow metro system, which is due to be completed in 2021. The company did not respond. to requests for comments.

A senior executive of a Russian-Chinese consortium based in the Crimean city of Sevastopol declined to answer questions about the tunnel project when contacted by a Post reporter.

Russian businessman Volodymyr Kalyuzhnyi, named in the documents as the consortium’s CEO, called it “a lot of fever” and then said he would not provide any information to “hostile media” and abruptly ended the conversation. .

His response contradicted how the proposal was portrayed in internal emails. In a message sent last month to a Russian official who is one of Crimea’s main representatives in Moscow, Kalyuzhnyi said he had “a letter from our Chinese partners about the readiness of one of China’s largest companies, CRCC, to participate as a general contractor in the construction of a tunnel under the Kerch Strait “.