The Claims Conference, which seeks restitution for Jewish Holocaust victims, issued a 2004 report saying many Bulgarian Jews were sent to labor camps, where they performed railroad and construction work under grueling physical conditions.
At a meeting chaired by Russian President Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and high-level railroad officials in early April, the construction of a railroad stretching from the banks of Russia's Lena River to the Bering Strait was discussed at length, adding further evidence that Moscow sees the BST project as not only feasible, but inevitable.