Thousands of North Koreans entered Russia in 2024 to take jobs in construction, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Feb. 9.
The report comes a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Moscow's key ally, pledged his country's unwavering support for Russia as it pursues its "just cause" in Ukraine.
North Korea sent thousands of workers to take jobs at construction sites across Russia in 2024, Yonhap reported, citing South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS). The move represents an apparent violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions passed in the wake of North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests.
Russia is party to U.N. Resolution 2397, a 2017 decision that prohibits North Korea from sending its citizens to work overseas. Moscow and Pyongyang may be skirting the prohibition in the guise of student visas, Yonhap reported.
According to data from Russia's federal statistics service, 13,221 North Koreans entered Russia in 2024 — up 12 times from the previous year. Nearly 8,000 of those arrivals reportedly claimed to be entering the country for educational purposes.
Russia has faced severe labor shortages as a consequence of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both military mobilization and the decreasing number of migrants entering the country have exacerbated the crisis, and Russia is heading into a drastic population decline over the next two decades.
The 13,000 North Korean workers will not reverse Russia's economic downturn, but the recent arrivals may mark "the beginning of larger influxes ... that could more significantly help Russia's labor shortage issues," analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote on Feb. 9.
Military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang also deepened in 2024, with Russian President Vladimir Putin signing a mutual defense pact with Kim in June. Soon after, North Korea escalated its involvement in Russia's war from providing weapons — including artillery ammunition and ballistic missiles — to sending soldiers.
Up to 12,000 North Korean troops were deployed in the Russia's Kursk Oblast last fall to support Russian troops in countering a Ukrainian incursion in the region.
Kateryna Hodunova
(Updated: )
