The obscure firm with suspected ties to Chechen elites was picked by Russia to lead the project in Feb. 2025
The main Russian contractor building the new motorway link to North Korea faces a $1.5 million lawsuit from the project’s likely material supplier, according to court documents, just weeks before the bridge’s expected opening.
TonnelYuzhStroi, the small firm based out of Sochi, accumulated $1.44 million in debt from the rock soil supplier Primorskaya Nerudnaya Company, while facing $170,535 in late fines, a Vladivostok arbitration court said Thursday.
The plaintiff in June filed a lawsuit saying it supplied $4.2 million in construction material to TonnelYuzhStroi but didn’t get the full payment, court documents show. A new hearing is set for September.
Primorskaya Nerudnaya Company’s location in Vladivostok and primary area of operations in the Russian Far East suggests it is likely one of the suppliers for TonnelYuzhStroi’s project, the company’s only publicly known large-scale project in the region.
The Russian government contracted TonnelYuzhStroi for the project in Feb. 2025, despite the firm’s limited number of employees and financial losses.
View of the new Russia-DPRK car bridge in summer 2026 | Video: Yanbian Bo via Xiaohongshu
Construction officially began in April last year, with Russia and the DPRK holding a linking ceremony the following year. By mid-August, North Korea completed construction of its main border facility, while Russia added several buildings at its much larger checkpoint, according to satellite imagery and social media footage.
Russia originally planned to spend over $110 million on the 4.7 km (2.92 miles) border crossing, including the one kilometer-long bridge. NK Pro subsequently found that the cost of the Russian checkpoint would likely exceed $170 million.
An NK News investigation suggested TonnelYuzhStroi is likely a front for BTS-Most, a construction corporation run by Chechen business mogul Ruslan Baisarov, who appears to be a confidant of Chechnya’s head Ramzan Kadyrov and has discussed construction projects with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Experts warned of potential embezzlement or malfeasance issues with BTS-Most’s ties to the project, and that Baisarov’s role could have helped the project materialize given its importance for Putin.
Putin and his DPRK counterpart Kim Jong Un signed off on the project during their June 2024 summit in Pyongyang, while approving a mutual defense treaty that paved the way for DPRK troop deployments to Russia later that year.
The bridge’s opening was delayed from June 19, which would have marked the second anniversary of the Putin-Kim summit, to early September, a local official told Russian state media.
The opening ceremony is expected to coincide with the East Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept. 1-4. Putin regularly attends the event, with ROK media speculating he could meet Kim to inaugurate the bridge.
Edited by David Choi
Updated on Aug. 14, 2026 at 3:25 p.m. with clarification about Primorskaya Nerudnaya Company and TonnelYuzhStroi
