Russia–Alaska Under-Arctic Tunnel for Rare Earth Resource Extraction.

Russia and the United States plan to jointly build a tunnel as a transport corridor between Chukotka and Alaska. Recently, the authorities confirmed that preparations for implementation are underway. The project is very old — it was first proposed back in the 1890s, and the initiators were the U.S. authorities. At that time, the governor of Colorado first suggested connecting North America and Eurasia through a corridor across the Bering Strait, but the idea was to create a railroad ferry crossing. The idea was supported by big business — the emerging global capitalism saw it as an opportunity to increase resource extraction and trade volumes through a “short logistic arm.”

I think it’s enough to simply quote Wikipedia here, so that all allies can clearly understand what and why this is being done — or rather, who has been lobbying it for over a century.

“1900 (1902) — Loic de Lobel approached the Imperial Technical Society of Russia with the idea of a project and a proposal to survey the route from Yakutsk to the Bering Strait and further to Alaska. Loic acted on behalf of an international syndicate established in France. In 1903, he again offered his project to the Tsarist government, this time on behalf of an American syndicate. The project provided for the transfer to the American side of full ownership of a strip of land along the railway, 16 miles (25.7 km) wide, for 90 years (i.e., 12.8 km on each side of the railway track). Between 1902 and 1904, the Russian Imperial government could not make any decision on this project — opinions were divided. In December 1905, a special meeting of the Council of Ministers headed by Witte approved the project, after which it was sent for further coordination to other departments. Ultimately, on March 20, 1907, the Council of Ministers decided to reject the project.”

“1918: After the Bolsheviks came to power, in April, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, V. I. Lenin signed a resolution on the construction of railways in the eastern and northern parts of the RSFSR, including in the direction of the Bering Strait, with the goal of accelerating the development of natural resources.”

“1943–1953: Implementation of the project to build a railway line from Vorkuta to Anadyr (the Transpolar Mainline). Most of the sections are located thousands of kilometers away from the Bering Strait and are now abandoned.”

“1960s: American engineers proposed unifying the USSR and U.S. power grids through a tunnel. The implementation of the multi-transport corridor ICL — World Link, including power lines, created prerequisites for an ‘energy bridge’ between the USSR and America. Expert assessments predicted annual savings of 20 billion dollars.”

“1990s: The project was discussed at major international conferences in Washington, Moscow, Anchorage, Novosibirsk, Fairbanks, as well as at a UN conference on global projects in Barcelona, a conference on underwater tunnels in Norway, a conference on Arctic issues in Finland, on Arctic coastal problems in Magadan, on major project management in Norway, and at a meeting of NAFTA railway management and engineering staff in Montreal.”

“1991: In Washington (USA), the International Non-Profit Corporation ‘Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group’ (IBSTRG), known in Russian as ‘Transcontinental,’ was registered. The corporation’s founders on the American side included the State of Alaska, the American Association of Railroads, the Association of Indigenous Peoples owning land in the Bering Strait area, major railway, construction, and consulting companies, and firms specializing in raw material extraction and processing. In Russia, a branch of the IBSTRG Corporation was registered, and a Coordinating Scientific and Technical Council was established.”

The Wikipedia excerpt is lengthy, but there’s no point in retelling it — everything is clear and laid out step by step: how the proposal to build a “Russia–U.S.” tunnel evolved and who lobbied for it.

The following information is of particular interest, I quote:

“2005: With the support of The Washington Times, during a world tour, Sun Myung Moon visited 100 countries giving public speeches in support of constructing a tunnel through the Bering Strait.”

“On August 17–19, 2011, an international conference ‘Comprehensive Development of the Infrastructure of the North-East of Russia’ was held in Yakutsk. Participants included representatives of the Federation Council, State Duma, Russian ministries (Economic Development, Energy, Transport, Education and Science, Regional Development, Tourism, Railways, Roads, Federal Tariff Service), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, executive and legislative authorities from eighteen Russian regions, representatives of the USA, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, China, South Korea, Poland, Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, and Sweden, as well as international organizations, leading scientists from Russia and abroad, and heads of Russian and international companies in industry, energy, and transport.”

“In 2025, amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Russia, U.S. President Donald Trump called the proposal to build an underwater tunnel beneath the Bering Strait ‘interesting,’ while Russian experts responded that the project could reshape global logistics routes, strengthen economic cooperation between countries, and reduce escalation. In its new configuration, the project includes the construction of a 112-km tunnel through the Bering Strait at a cost of 8 billion USD with the involvement of The Boring Company.”

All this information is from Wikipedia, not my own words — so you can assess the scale of the project yourself.

In short:

• The project is especially important and beneficial for the U.S. because it provides an opportunity to extract cheap resources from the Siberian and Far Eastern regions of Russia on a massive scale. It was the U.S. side that pushed for it over many years and sought the tunnel’s realization.

  
  
• This project serves exclusively capitalist interests and is supported not only by the U.S. but also by EU countries. The question is — who will exploit the cheap natural resources of our Far East and profit billions from it.

You may think through the political aspects yourself — I believe the information above is sufficient. I will now focus on what is not being discussed — primarily the area of my work: environmental protection.

Why is such a colossal project needed? Primarily to accelerate logistics and access to the Arctic’s riches. Today, trade between East Asia and North America largely depends on long sea routes across the Pacific Ocean (taking 2–3 weeks at best) or costly air transport. A railway corridor through the Bering Strait could reduce delivery time to 10 days and minimize risks associated with weather and port congestion. The tunnel would form a direct overland connection between the U.S. and Eurasia through the existing Trans-Siberian and North American rail networks. For Russia, it represents a chance to become a key transit hub between the two continents, benefiting from transit flows and strengthening global economic influence.

But above all, such a mainline would trigger a chain of new extraction projects in remote northern areas. The tunnel would effectively open the way to unexplored resources: Alaska holds deposits of rare earth metals that are still poorly developed. Russia, in turn, possesses technologies for extraction under permafrost conditions, accumulated in Siberia and the Arctic. I remind you that our government recently proposed that the U.S. jointly develop rare earth resources on our territory! Donald Trump himself called the idea interesting, noting it would give the U.S. access to “a huge amount of minerals.” Such a corridor would greatly simplify the export of rare metals from hard-to-reach deposits in Chukotka, Alaska, and Eastern Siberia — directly to industrial centers.

Unfortunately, the blow will fall on wildlife — on territories previously untouched by humans. I have proposed to the government the creation of Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET) there, but it seems that the authorities’ policy is moving in the exact opposite direction.

Building a railway through the wild tundra and mountains of Chukotka (around two thousand kilometers of track over complex terrain and permafrost to the tunnel point) threatens pristine wildlife refuges. Construction of infrastructure, ports, and worker settlements will inevitably affect animal migration routes — from reindeer to walruses — and the marine ecosystem of the strait.

I have repeatedly written in my materials that the main global conflicts and interests between states today lie in the extraction of rare earth resources — essential for the world’s transition to a “digital economy.” Unfortunately, from the protected forest-steppes of Central Russia to the tundras of the Arctic, the last corners of wild nature are now under threat due to the drive to mine the metals that underpin the “digital revolution.”

The U.S. will expand its influence over the wild, uninhabited territories of Chukotka and, through control of resource extraction, will pressure our country — effectively turning Russia into a colonial appendage. As they have always done with other nations — classical colonialism. We won’t be able to control this physically; one only needs to ask, “Where is Moscow and where is Chukotka?” In reality, the real “redistribution of interests” will be between the U.S. and China — it would be naïve to think otherwise.

Massive projects, factories, and resource developments will begin in the northern Arctic latitudes. Kamchatka will see an increase in “trophy tourists” eager to shoot wild animals — it now becomes clearer why regional authorities are so quickly reorienting their economies toward hunting tourism. A global development of the Arctic will begin, and the last wildlife refuges — where animals and plants could still hide from humans — will be plundered like all other territories before them.

It must be understood that the reverse side of the rare-earth boom is severe environmental damage. Extraction and processing of these elements involve aggressive chemicals, toxic waste, and radioactive byproducts. The most illustrative example is China, which paid a high price for its dominance in the rare-earth market. For decades, in northern China, processing waste was dumped into a massive artificial lake about 10 km² in area. In the southern provinces, mining of rare-metal ores poisoned dozens of valleys, turning once-green hills into barren red wastelands. 

The city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia — the center of China’s rare-earth industry — suffered particularly badly. Next to it formed a sludge lake where tailings from ore processing are dumped. In winter and spring, the sediment dries up, and poisonous dust saturated with lead, cadmium, and radioactive thorium spreads with the wind. In summer, rains mix the toxic waste with water, which seeps into the groundwater. Despite government efforts at reclamation, Baotou’s environment remains heavily polluted, and discussions about ecological damage are subject to censorship. 

Similar problems occur everywhere rare metals are extracted: acids and heavy metals enter rivers and soil, threatening local ecosystems.

And now, unfortunately, serious negotiations are underway to begin the global development of our Far Eastern and Arctic regions. This is exactly why the tunnel between Russia and the U.S. is needed.

There’s a saying: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” — and in this case, the United States is the one paying.

© PAVEL PASHKOV