Russia’s boring machine capabilities may offer strategic and tactical underground options in a continuing, rolling war of aggression against Ukraine, and possibly beyond.
Background: In 2020, Russia’s state owned company JSC Mosinzhproekt claimed the Guinness Book world record for most boring machines operating at once, demonstrating 23 boring machines at work boring new subway lines under Moscow. Reportedly, the company’s borers dug 98 km of Metro lines since 2011 (albeit, not with all borers operating at once throughout the project). Mosinzhinvest of Moscow funded the project.
If it took JSC Mosinzhproekt 13 years to dig 98 km of relatively shallow city subway lines in a complicating urban subsurface, how long would it take to dig 15 km of mostly rural underground military railway in areas under Russian control? By Moscow Metro’s tunneling measures, it should take about 2 years, yet could be faster via a mostly rural route with multiple machines working on the same route and using seismic-while-drilling geologic detection information (2002, 2014, 2024). Note the two Chinese technical papers in the two latter-linked references, in the context of Russian-Chinese discussions of an undersea tunnel to Crimea reported in November last year. Preexisting underground tunnels, if any, could also shorten the work.
Finishing the railways or roadways behind the boring machines would make sense for transporting excavated earth out of the tunneling project, and to eventually remove the boring machines.
Tunneling in Warfare: Two Informative Papers from 2015 and 2023
Two papers are essential reading for NATO, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s respective leaders, and Ukrainian commanders to help inform adaptive missions for detection, preparation, offensive and defensive excellence to beat Russia and Russian proxies’ strategic and tactical tunneling efforts in this latest era of Russian aggression.
Patrick J. Springer’s prescient 2015 Foreign Policy Research journal article, “Fighting Under the Earth: The History of Tunneling in Warfare,” focuses on the history of tactical tunneling in warfare with some strategic observations covering offensive and defensive measures taken from ancient undermining of fortified castles and walls to modern, tactical tunneling warfare from WW1 to allied attacks on Al Qaeda in the tunnels of Tora Bora, to Hamas’s use of tunnels in warfare against Israel in 2014.
And in a detailed tactical and strategic tunnel warfare discussion with an emphasis on the broad variety of effects, objectives, and methods tunneling introduces to warfare, D. Richemond-Barak and S. Voiculescu-Holvad, consulted SME’s Shai Sisso, Physics Research Department, DDR&D; and Maj. (ret.) John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point in writing a comprehensive paper on tunnel warfare uses, capabilities, and practical considerations with “The Rise of Tunnel Warfare as a Tactical, Operational, and Strategic Issue,” in the 2023 Journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
One historically recent example the papers may have missed is Iran’s use of tunneling complexes to protect its drone fleets, aspects of its nuclear weapons development, and perhaps its leadership. Air assets protected in tunnels is a compelling prospect as is the ability to unleash airpower from an unexpected opening behind enemy lines.
As General James Rainey of Army Futures Command: “Technology is dramatically increasing the strength of the defense, at the same time, it is dramatically complicating offense,” said Rainey, speaking on the sidelines of the Ash Carter Exchange..
Gen. Rainey’s comment implies that new means of finding strategic and tactical advantage on offense and defense are current competitive priorities to avert resignation to WW1 type attrition. Tunneling is one of those means.
Kaliningrad: Offensive and Defensive Tunneling for Survivability and Recurrent Re-instigation of Combat
As an example of offensive and defensive strategic tunneling potential, in Kaliningrad, Russia could dig underground paved or railway tunnels between its logistical installations, army units, naval bases, and naval air bases if they have not already done so. One example is the 15 km stretch between its munitions and artillery storage bunkers in West Kaliningrad manned by the Voyskovaya Chast’ (military unit manning munitions storage facility at left of map) to the Chkalovsk naval airbase (see feature image, and below right of map) and between other military installations.
Voyskovaya Chast’ (military unit) appears to depend on a single surface railway to transfer stores or materials in or out. If that surface railway is destroyed and under constant threat, strategic tunneling could provide a hardened means of protective transport, storage, and deception for troops, support personnel, naval aviation armaments, military hardware, ammunition, weapons and more via reinforced, underground railway and related networks of tunnels to land and sea.
Interestingly, at Voyskovaya Chast’ the munitions bunkers were reported in July 2018 to have been reinforced against external impact with extensive dirt berms over three months in 2018 and perhaps in more recent images not available currently to StrategyShelf. Where did the extra dirt come from? Such questions take on new meaning where there has been possible covert tunneling activity as a possible source of extra earth in a surface project.
Underneath Ukrainian, European, or NATO Territories
Expanding networks of smaller tunnels from the larger ones such as Hamas did could also create options for Russia and its proxies to run surprise attacks behind the lines in Ukraine and Israel and within the European Union should Russia invade countries beyond Ukraine whether it triggers the NATO alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense provision or not.
Yet seismically, it may be hard to hide boring activity under territory controlled by opposing forces, so as in real estate, location is key, whereas in war, diversion is key. Drilling while bombarding for example, could mask tunneling activities for shorter distances. See the cited sources above for more details and endnotes for further planning and preparation.
Under the Suwalki Gap (70 km)
The Suwalki corridor is a roughly 64 km / 40 mile long land parcel belonging to Poland and Lithuania that separates Belarus and Kaliningrad. A common belief is that Russian forces would try to overtake the Suwalki corridor and so unite Russian satellite Belarus with Kaliningrad, making Kaliningrad and enclave instead of an exclave in Europe, reachable by land and sea. One way to do that might be to tunnel under the corridor in Poland from Belarus and create recurrent tunnel networks for invasion and retreat from which to make Suwalki continuously contested.
The notion that Russia would try to tunnel for 70 km or so under Poland from Belarus to Kaliningrad to establish underground rail seems a stretch as the area contains a number of river valleys, lakes, and marshes, which could complicate tunneling. However, it is rural land and as undersea tunnels were in planning stages between Russia and China for linking Russia to Crimea, so clandestine or covert strategic tunneling beneath Suwalki could be one method of avoiding defeat from concentrated NATO military power on the surface of the Suwalki corridor even as Russia attempts to incrementally win territory and dig-in in Ukraine.
On the other side, to keep its own lines of transport and communications more survivable in the event of war, Poland and Lithuania could also create tunnels under their borders and countermines to thwart Russian tunneling efforts. See the referenced articles above for details.
Preliminary Observations and Conclusions
Now is the time to leverage every advantage and preempt every aggressor’s advantage. By digging deep and and reinforcing one’s underground, free nations can counter and exceed the gains attempted by autocratic axes and their proxies in the underground domain. Subjecting the field to rapid innovation is in free nations’ best interests.
