Russia has chosen a contractor to build a motorway bridge over the Tumen river on its border with North Korea, the Interfax news agency reports.

The bridge, which will carry the only road between the two countries, will be built by the end of 2026 by the Sochi-based civil engineer TonnelYuzhStroi.

According to the US Register of Legal Entities, TonnelYuzhStroi was established in December 2023, and specialises in bridges and tunnels.

The project was ordered by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and has been published on the government’s legal information website.

The two countries signed an agreement to build a motorway bridge during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Pyongyang in June 2024.

North Korea’s only land connection to Russia is a single rail bridge, so a road crossing is expected to increase trade and tourism once it is connected to a road network.

A similar road bridge, the New Yalu, was built between North Korea and China about 10 years ago, but has yet to open because the Koreans have not built a road at their end. As a result, all traffic between the two countries must use the Sino–Korean Friendship Bridge, completed in 1943.

The idea of a road bridge has been a recurring feature of Russian-Korean relations.

Talks were held in 2015, but these ended in 2016 after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test.

Further talks in 2019 came to nothing.

But with North Korea supplying soldiers and ammunition in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there may now be greater impetus for the project.