North Korea has sent 15,000 workers to Russia to help alleviate a labor shortage driven by Moscow’s military losses in Ukraine and falling birth rates, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported, citing South Korean intelligence.
Pyongyang has been one of Russia’s strongest allies since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Now in its third year, the war has intensified Russia’s labor crisis, which was already exacerbated by a low birth rate.
Western estimates suggest hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers have died in the conflict while many others have fled the country to avoid military conscription and growing state repression.
According to Russia’s Labor Ministry, the country faces a labor shortage of 1.5 million workers, which could rise to 2.4 million by 2030.
The WSJ reported on Monday that South Korea’s intelligence agency told the country’s lawmakers last week that Pyongyang had dispatched nearly 15,000 migrant workers to Russia to help plug the shortfall.
Many are believed to have entered on student visas, with Moscow’s data showing a 12-fold increase in North Korean arrivals in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Low wages for North Korean workers
So far, the workers have been primarily sent to Russia’s Far East, but Russian officials hope to bring more to major cities, including Moscow.
Russian employers value North Korean laborers’ willingness to work 12-hour shifts for low wages without complaints about working conditions, the WSJ said.
The move constitutes a violation of the United Nations Security Council, which bars the use of overseas North Korean migrant labor.
The Kursk counteroffensive
Since 2022, Moscow and Pyongyang have deepened economic and military cooperation, marked by a mutual defense treaty signed last November.
Last year, North Korea sent 12,000 soldiers to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, followed by an additional 3,000 this year. The troops supported Moscow’s counteroffensive in Kursk, a western Russian region where Kyiv troops launched a surprise incursion last August and suffered heavy casualties, according to reports.
Last month, the Kremlin said that it had fully repelled Ukrainian forces from the area, a claim Kyiv denies.
On Monday, some pro-Russian military bloggers claimed Ukraine had launched a second incursion into Kursk. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv has yet commented on the reports.