Same Chinese firms responsible for Crimea-Russia tunnel to build EU project in Baltic Sea

The construction of tunnels to connect the occupied Crimean peninsula to Russian mainland and the Finnish and Estonian capitals Helsinki and Tallinn is controlled by the same people from China.

As reported by TVP World, the Washington Post revealed this information together with Finnish media outlets, reporting, that that Chinese companies are overlooking the construction of a tunnel leading from the Kremlin-occupied Crimean peninsula to Russia.

This project is being considered due to Ukrainian attacks on various targets in Russia and Crimea, which is Kyiv’s response to the Russian military offensive on Ukraine.

As revealed by the investigation, the project has been entrusted to the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), Beijing's state-owned railway construction company.

According to email correspondence accessed by the Washington Post, the company has requested that its involvement in the project remain secret out of fears that sanctions would be imposed on it for supporting Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Peter Vesterbacka, the Finnish businessman responsible for the construction of the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel, assessed in an interview with public broadcaster Yle that he “sees no problem in involving a Chinese entity in the project, responsible for the construction of the underground railway”.

The entrepreneur pointed out that “the actions of the Chinese [related to] Russian aggression [against Ukraine] do not affect the tunnel under the Gulf of Finland”.

The approximately 100-kilometre-long tunnel project is being led by FinEst Bay Area Development, co-founded by Peter Vesterbacka, who is also known as the creator of the popular game Angry Birds. FinEst Bay estimates that construction will cost EUR 15-20 billion.

The tunnel passage is expected to integrate Finland into the standard European rail network, being introduced to the Baltic countries through the Rail Baltica project.