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Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy has called on Elon Musk to build an undersea tunnel connecting Russia to Alaska, a day after US President Donald Trump floated the prospect of resumed trade between the two countries if the war in Ukraine ends.
“Imagine connecting the US and Russia, the Americas and the Afro-Eurasia with the Putin-Trump Tunnel — a 70-mile link symbolising unity,’’ Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Kremlin’s sovereign wealth fund and a special envoy for investment, said on X on Thursday.
He claimed that with technology from Musk’s Boring Company, the costs of such a project could be reduced from more than $65bn to less than $8bn.
The pitch came hours after the first call between the two presidents since a summit in Alaska in August that failed to achieve a breakthrough on the Ukraine crisis.
Trump said he and Putin “spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over”.
.@elonmusk, imagine connecting the US and Russia, the Americas and the Afro-Eurasia with the Putin-Trump Tunnel – a 70-mile link symbolizing unity. Traditional costs are $65B+, but @boringcompany‘s tech could reduce it to https://t.co/boCVb8xqjl pic.twitter.com/QXmTYAduqm
— Kirill Dmitriev (@kadmitriev) October 16, 2025
Putin and Trump agreed to meet again in a few weeks in Budapest on the call on Thursday.
The Kremlin has attempted to win Trump over through the promise of economic co-operation if the war in Ukraine ends and western sanctions against Russia are lifted.
Dmitriev, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard, played a key role in setting up US talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia this year. He has since built a relationship with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and joined him at several meetings with Putin to discuss the Ukraine crisis.
Though US-Russia trade was just $3.5bn last year, Dmitriev has claimed US companies have lost $342bn by withdrawing from Russia and suggested they could replace departed European multinationals there.
He has also touted potentially lucrative joint ventures in energy and the Arctic, though it is unclear to what extent Russia has discussed these with the US.
Construction of a tunnel in the Bering Strait would be complicated by the area’s lack of any existing infrastructure, its 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.
He said his Russian Direct Investment Fund “has studied existing proposals, including the US-Canada-Russia-China railroad, and will support the most viable”.
The Boring Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
