Nov 24, 2023
Reporter
Russia has reportedly held secret talks with Chinese business executives to build an underwater tunnel connecting annexed Crimea to Russia, but such a structure is unlikely to solve Vladimir Putin‘s problems.
The Washington Post reported Friday that Ukraine’s security services intercepted talks between Russia and China in October about building the structure due to the vulnerability of the Kerch Strait Bridge. But a retired lieutenant general told Newsweek an underwater tunnel would be vulnerable both during construction and after completion.
The Kerch Strait bridge serves as a key supply route for Russia’s forces and is Moscow’s sole land link with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Putin in 2014.
Ukraine struck the 19-kilometer (12-mile) road and rail bridge in October 2022 and again in July this year. The bridge, which has a four-lane roadway for vehicles and a railway bridge with two tracks, is crucial to sustaining Moscow’s military offensives in southern Ukraine. Satellite photos obtained by Newsweek show that the railway was damaged by Kyiv’s second strike.
Britain’s Defense Ministry has assessed that for that reason, it has become a significant security burden for Moscow.
This video grab taken from a Crimea24TV footage on July 17, 2023, shows the damaged Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia. The bridge serves as a key supply route for Russia’s forces in the war and is Moscow’s sole land link with Crimea.GETTY IMAGES/-/CRIMEA24TV/AFP
Russian and Chinese business executives with government ties reportedly hope to build the tunnel to establish a transportation route that would be protected from attacks by Ukraine.
The underwater tunnel “would be vulnerable…throughout the construction process as well as after completion,” retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges told Newsweek.
Hodges said it wouldn’t be easy for Russia to build the structure.
“There are real engineering challenges associated with this idea of a tunnel…the bottom of the Black/Azov Sea there in that area is not ideal for even the Kerch bridge so seismic activity would be a real problem for the tunnel as well,” said Hodges.
Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Chatham House think tank in London, U.K., told Newsweek that an underwater tunnel would still pose a problem for Russia.
“If it is actually built, it will be a more secure means for movement to and from the occupied peninsula—but still a chokepoint and a single point of failure, and for as long as hostilities continue, anybody transiting this notional tunnel should feel exceptionally nervous,” said Giles.
Newsweek couldn’t independently verify the report by The Washington Post. The newspaper said the messages were provided by Ukrainian officials hoping to expose the project and China’s potential involvement. Newsweek has reached out to Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment via email.
Putin signalled that he wanted to build an underwater tunnel to connect Russia and Crimea in 2014 when his forces annexed the peninsula.
“We need both a road and a railway bridge there,” Putin said at the time. That bridge is now the Kerch Strait Bridge.
“The option of a tunnel under the Kerch Strait will also be considered,” then-transport minister Maxim Sokolov said, without elaborating.
The Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War assessed in August that Ukraine’s strikes on infrastructure linking Crimea to southern Ukraine and to mainland Russia are impacting Moscow’s ability to move resources. The think tank said this was also hampering the Kremlin’s efforts to fend off Kyiv’s ongoing counteroffensive to reclaim Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pledged to recapture Crimea.
About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her current focus is on the Russia-Ukraine war, and she has covered human rights issues in previous roles. Isabel joined Newsweek in 2021 and had previously worked with news outlets including the Daily Express, The Times, Harper’s BAZAAR, and Grazia. She has an MA in Newspaper Journalism at City, University of London, and a BA in Russian language at QMUL. Languages: English, Russian
You can get in touch with Isabel by emailing i.vanbrugen@newsweek.com
Twitter handle: @isabelvanbrugen
The putler bridge must be attacked enough to put it beyond repair. The time is now.
The Chicoms as usual reveal themselves to be treacherous bastards who, far from taking a more conciliatory approach, are more than willing to help putler murder Ukrainians; either by supplying munitions via its junkyard dog; NK, or building the putler tunnel.
The rat nazi has no intention of leaving Crimea, or any occupied Ukrainian land. His orcs have to be driven out, or eliminated in such immense numbers that the occupation becomes untenable.
On the balance of probability, the claims in Bild about Germany/US pressuring Zel to do a deal are probably true. But at what level, is not known.
It is known however, that Pistorius wants to give Ukraine the game-changing Taurus missile, but Scholz blocks it.
Part of the plan is already a fact : the trickledown approach to weapons.
Extract from the DT:
“Germany and the US will put pressure on Ukraine to negotiate with Russia by scaling back weapons deliveries in what would be a major blow to Kyiv’s hopes of victory, German media reported on Friday.
Bild, a German tabloid, reported what it described as a “secret” German-American plan to force Ukraine’s hand on opening peace talks, citing sources in the German government.
Under the plan, Washington and Berlin would supply Ukraine with sufficient weapons and armour to hold the current front line, but not enough to retake occupied territory.
They hope to push Volodymr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, towards the negotiating table with Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader.
“Zelensky should realise that it can’t go on like this,” a German government source told Bild, referring to Ukraine’s stalled counter-offensive against Russian in the east. “He needs to, of his own free will, turn to face his nation and explain that there is a need to negotiate.”
German government sources also told Bild that the White House shared Germany’s view on the need to shift the focus from weapons deliveries to negotiations.
There was no response to the report from the White House as of Friday night. Washington has repeatedly vowed to support Ukraine’s efforts to expel Russian troops.
Bild noted that, as the largest providers of armour and defence to Ukrainian forces, a request from Germany and the US would have to be taken seriously by Mr Zelensky.
Germany’s government did not immediately respond to the Bild report, which will frustrate officials in Kyiv as they continue to strive for a full military victory over Russia, including the recapture of occupied territory.
Bild also suggested that there is a rift in the German government between Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, and Boris Pistorius, his defence minister. The latter played no part in drawing up the plan to give Ukraine “just enough [arms] not to go under” and would even support delivering powerful Taurus missiles to Ukraine, sources said.
“Since Scholz took office, the defence ministry has been under the thumb of the federal chancellor’s office. Many decisions are made there,” an anonymous defence official told Bild, in what seemed to be an attempt to distance the minister from the alleged German-American plan.
The Telegraph understands, that beyond Germany, there are concerns in Nato nations that Ukraine’s counter-offensive was “over-hyped” and that there is a desire to manage future expectations about the next stage of the war.
Mr Scholz’s rival CDU party also reacted with alarm to the plan, which it said was evidence that the chancellor had no intention of helping Ukraine to win the war, even though it is an existential conflict.
“It becomes ever more clear that the chancellor does not believe in a Ukrainian victory and does not want one at all,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU Bundestag member.
Robert Fico, the Slovak premier, has said the Ukraine war risks lasting until 2030 if peace talks are not started. The populist Left-winger won September’s general election, pledging during the campaign to discontinue the military aid given to Ukraine by previous governments.
“This conflict is frozen, it is in a state wherein it may last until 2029 or 2030,” Mr Fico said. “It is better to lead talks for 10 years in peace or with suspended combat operations than to go to the negotiations table after 10 years without any result, only to find out that we have another 500,000 or 600,000 dead.”
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, campaigned in the elections on a promise to halt arms shipments to Ukraine.”
“It becomes ever more clear that the chancellor does not believe in a Ukrainian victory and does not want one at all,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU Bundestag member.”
Well, that’s one guy who’s willing to go on record.
Germany appears split right down the middle; both in terms of the general public and the political elite.
In America, overwhelming support for Ukraine from the GOP voter bloc and their representatives has evaporated down to maybe less than 50-50.
This can be attributed largely to the efforts of Carlson and Trump.
I don’t buy this, Scradge. All the news providers are quoting from the same source; Bild, which itself is relying on (infamous) anonymous source/s. Bild is more like a tabloid rather than a serious news outlet.
This might very well be instigated by a pro-mafia entity, or more likely directly by mafia land. This is part of mafia land’s divide and conquer strategy. The same goes for the blockage on the Polish border. Things are trickling through that a pro-mafia group has instigated this mess.
As for the trickle-down theory to support this dubious claim, it is SOP for people like Biden and Scholz. They are afraid of “provoking” mafia land too much. There is still bipartisan support for Ukraine aid in the US and the biggest majority of German politicians across all the parties do so too, except the usual swamp-dwellers from the Nazi AfD and the communist Die Linken.
Don’t get yourself so riled up about this. This only helps mafia propaganda and its subterfuge stratagem. Unless a more reliable source substantiates this claim, it’s to be taken with a healthy dose of salt.
This is non-news. There will never be a tunnel under the sea between the Crimea and the shithole. If the chinks are serious about this, this is just another hook and worm method to integrate mafia land further into its spiderweb, like it does all across the globe with other nations. I doubt very much that the chinks have enough confidence of mafia land holding on to the Crimea to risk billions. Even so, such a project would take many years to complete, and it would still be very risky to anyone using it. I wouldn’t want to be caught in a very long tunnel when either end is attacked. No sirree!
It won’t solve Putin’s problems because Crimea is strategically untenable. What’s more Ukraine has made it strategically pointless now that Sevastopol is vulnerable to aerial and sea borne attack. The Black Sea Fleet can not use it and have had to scatter their ships all over the
Black Sea.
Crimea is basically a pinata dangling in Black Sea waiting to be smashed.