Russian and Chinese business executives with government ties have held secret discussions on plans to build an underwater tunnel connecting Russia to Crimea.
The negotiations underscore Russia's determination to maintain its grip on Crimea, a peninsula that it annexed illegally in 2014, as well as Moscow's growing dependence on China as a source of global support.
Constructing a tunnel near the existing bridge would face enormous obstacles, according to U.S. officials and engineering experts who said work of such magnitude, probably costing billions of dollars and taking years to complete, has never been attempted in a war zone.
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