By Japan Today Editor

Copyright japantoday

North Korean laborers dispatched to Russia’s Far East for temporary work have enlisted with the Russian military, with hundreds deployed to the country’s western Kursk region since around July, an analysis by Ukrainian authorities, cited by a defense intelligence official, showed Sunday.

The move underscores the deepening military ties between Russia and North Korea, which has sent troops to aid Moscow in the ongoing war against Ukraine, although the impact of North Korean migrant workers’ joining the Russian military is believed to be limited at this point given the current scale.

While neither the Russian nor North Korean governments have officially acknowledged such findings by Ukraine authorities, Moscow can apparently secure manpower to compensate for its shortage of domestic troops.

Pyongyang, for its part, can acquire foreign currency through the payments the workers will receive from the Russian military, and the number of enlistees may increase further.

According to information obtained through intelligence activity within Russia, North Koreans, who have traveled to Russia’s Far East as migrant workers, have signed contracts with the Russian military.

In small numbers, they are believed to have been incorporated into Russian military units, such as mechanized brigades and marines, stationed in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces launched cross-border attacks in August last year and temporarily seized part of the territory.

So far, no evidence has been found that the North Korean workers have taken part in actual combat.

North Korea confirmed in April this year that it sent troops to fight in Russia against Ukrainian forces under a bilateral defense cooperation pact, with the state-run media saying that the North Koreans joined operations “liberating the Kursk areas according to the order” of leader Kim Jong Un.

According to the Ukraine government, more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to the Kursk region.

While fighting in the area has subsided since Russia announced in April that it had regained full control of the region, North Koreans enlisting in the Russian military may participate in future combat inside Ukrainian territory, according to the Ukraine intelligence official.

North Korea systematically dispatches workers abroad, including China and Russia, where they typically live under collective supervision at their destinations. The enlistment into the Russian military is highly likely to have been either directed or approved by North Korean authorities.

In the past, North Korean workers served as an important labor force in Russia’s Far East, engaging in construction, agriculture and other fields.

Such employment, however, was in principle banned under sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile activities.

But a source familiar with Russia-North Korea relations said that North Korean laborers are being accepted in the Far East again after Russia started its full-scale invasion against Ukraine in 2022.