The subs have started their third season of exploration at Lake Baikal
Russian-owned submersibles would be able to cap the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the captain of one of the vessels has said.
The skipper was speaking as two of the subs - which can dive to 6,000m - started a campaign of exploration at the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
He added that there was still time for the subs to help BP with the disaster.
The subs are searching for gas hydrates - a potential alternative fuel source - on the bed of Baikal.
Yevgenii Chernyaev told BBC News that the problem had to be addressed at the highest level.
Two oval-shaped submersibles have recently started their third season of exploration in Baikal - the world's deepest lake.
Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, which owns the vessels, said that he had an informal conversation with a BP representative asking if Mirs would be able to help stop the leak.
But he said there was no official request and no real discussions about the matter.
A BP spokesman told BBC News that the company had not had any formal contact with the Russians.
"We've had over 120,000 people come up with ideas," he said in an e-mail.
"We are looking through all of these to see which are viable. If [the Russians] want to contact us (or may have done so through some other channel), we can evaulate their idea."
Oil has been leaking from a damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico since a BP-operated drilling platform, Deepwater Horizon, exploded and sank in April.
And though BP says it is now able to gather some 10,000 barrels of oil a day, using a device that siphons oil up to surface ships, thousands of barrels of oil continue to gush daily from the ocean floor.
The US administration has already called the leak the biggest environmental catastrophe in the country's history.
Mr Chernyaev said that his team had held numerous discussions about the oil spill in the Gulf and the Russians would be ready to come to the rescue - but only if everything was done properly.
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