Alaska-Russia 70-mile friendship tunnel: Kremlin envoy says feasibility study started six months ago

Vladimir Putin's investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who floated the idea on social media, inviting Elon Musk to build a 70-mile tunnel connecting Alaska and Russia, said that the feasibility study of such a tunnel, which will be known and the Trump-Putin tunnel, started six months ago. Donald Trump said he thinks that the proposal was 'interesting' but Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he did not like the idea at all.

“I just heard about it — a tunnel from Russia to Alaska. I just heard about that one. That’s an interesting one. We’ll have to think about that,” Trump told reporters as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.

Is the Alaska-Russia tunnel going to be a reality?

The proposal appeared on social media on October 16 in a post from Kirill Dmitriev, who pitched his proposal to Elon Musk, as he wrote: “Imagine connecting the US and Russia, the Americas and the Afro-Eurasia with the Putin-Trump Tunnel — a 70-mile link symbolising unity."


Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said the tunnel crossing the Bering Strait, connecting the Russian Far East and Alaska, would take less than eight years to build, at a cost of about US$8 billion.

Construction of a tunnel in the Bering Strait would be difficult because of the heightened seismic activity and temperatures dropping well below zero. The 70-mile link would be more than double the length of the Channel Tunnel from the UK to France, which is 31.5 miles long. “The dream of a US-Russia link via the Bering Strait reflects an enduring vision — from the 1904 Siberia-Alaska railway to Russia’s 2007 plan,” Dmitriev wrote.

What is the distance between Russia and Alaska?

The straight distance between Russia and Alaska is around 53 miles. The existing conventional railway in North America (the United States and Canada) runs for 1,767 miles (2,844 km) and operates from Cape Prince of Wales (Alaska, USA) to Whitehorse (Canada), with further connection to Seattle.