SEOUL: North Korea sent a large number of workers to Russia in 2024, as well as troops, according to the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in Seoul.
The NIS said on Feb 9 that North Korea has sent “thousands of workers to construction sites in various parts of Russia” over the past year – a number that has grown since the estimate given last October.
Then, the NIS had said in a briefing that about 4,000 North Korean workers were already believed to be in Russia, with each worker being paid a monthly stipend of approximately US$800.
Russia may be recruiting North Korean workers to fill gaps in the construction industry created by its prolonged aggression against Ukraine, according to Democratic Party of Korea Representative Wi Sung-lac, who was Seoul’s ambassador to Russia.
“I think North Korean workers may have been recruited to make up for the labour shortages after many were drafted for the war,” Wi told The Korea Herald on Feb 9.
On North Korea providing thousands of workers to Russia in the space of a year, Wi said that before sanctions, it used to be tens of thousands. “But now that there are sanctions, they are not supposed to be sending workers at all,” he said.
North Korea’s deployment of overseas workers violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 2375, which bans the issuance of work permits to North Korean labourers. Under the resolution, all existing North Korean workers were mandated to return home by the end of December 2019.
North Korea and Russia have been accused of bypassing these restrictions by exploiting student visas and other loopholes.
Wi added that with US President Donald Trump pledging to end the war in Ukraine, Moscow will likely be coming to the table with its own set of conditions for the post-ceasefire order.
“I think Washington is working with the goal of ending the war, possibly by Easter. I don’t know if they have been able to make any progress with Russia, which is not uninterested in a ceasefire, but it’s going to want to set some preconditions concerning border demarcations and such,” the lawmaker said.
The NIS has yet to confirm claims by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his address on Feb 7 that North Korean soldiers have been brought back to the front line in Russia’s Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine.
It said in January that North Korean soldiers appeared to have been withdrawn from operations in Kursk, likely due to troop losses.
The NIS believes that as at mid-January, at least 300 North Korean soldiers operating in Russia’s war have been killed, and some 2,700 have been wounded.
According to the NIS, North Korea sent about 11,000 soldiers to Russia to fight Ukraine since October 2024. North Korean soldiers are being paid around US$2,000 a month each, the NIS said. - The Korea Herald/ANN
