Putin Envoy Woos Musk With Proposal for Russia-to-US Tunnel

A special envoy to Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Elon Musk to build a tunnel between Alaska and Russia’s remote Far East, reviving a decades-old notion at a time when the Kremlin is seeking to bolster ties with the White House.

Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, called for a “Putin-Trump Tunnel” under the Bering Strait. He claimed in a series of X posts that the Boring Co., Musk’s drilling venture, could complete the project for about $8 billion in less than eight years, without providing details.

The Kremlin and Boring Co. didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Boring’s only completed public project to date is an underground loop in Las Vegas connecting a conference center and several hotels.

The pitch is outlandish at best given that the tunnel would need to cut through some of the world’s most inhospitable, remote and empty terrain. It comes after Putin and US President Donald Trump held a call on Thursday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine and fits a broader pattern by Dmitriev to get Musk and the US president on Russia’s side.

Trump said the two leaders, who met in Alaska earlier this year, would hold a summit in the coming weeks in Budapest to continue cease-fire talks.

“The question is who would even use it,” said Emily Ferris, a senior fellow at RUSI who studies Russian transport infrastructure. “It’s impossible to get up there in the first place and it’s mostly deserted. It’s not connected well to any other parts of the Far East.”

Trump was asked about the idea at a White House meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday.

“A tunnel from Russia to Alaska — I just heard about that one,” Trump said. “That’s an interesting one. We’ll have to think about that.”

With assistance from Ilya Arkhipov and Kiel Porter.

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