North Korea will dispatch 6,000 personnel to assist in reconstruction efforts in Russia’s war-damaged Kursk Region, the Kremlin-aligned Interfax news agency reports. The news follows from an announcement made by Russian Security Council Secretary and former longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after a visit to Pyongyang.
The visit marked Shoigu’s third trip to North Korea in the past three months and came at the direction of Vladimir Putin. According to Shoigu, the North Korean contingent will include 1,000 deminers and 5,000 military construction workers. He also said that Russia will build memorials dedicated to North Korean fighters who died aiding Moscow’s forces in pushing back a Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk Region.
Plans to bring in North Korean laborers to rebuild war-torn areas were first floated in mid-2022 by Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who is in charge of overseeing the “restoration” of the so-called “new territories” that Russia occupied and illegally annexed from Ukraine, supported the idea, adding that between 20,000 and 50,000 North Korean workers could be needed for “specific tasks.” In the fall of 2022, CNN reported that North Korean technical advisers had arrived to help rebuild Mariupol — a fact North Korean authorities later confirmed.
By May 2025, South Korea’s intelligence agency estimated that around 15,000 North Korean migrant workers had already been deployed to Russia, most of them in the Far East near the border with the DPRK. Employers reportedly favor North Korean laborers thanks to their willingness to accept low wages, work 12-hour days, and tolerate harsh conditions without complaint.
In early February, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency also reported that Pyongyang had sent thousands of workers to Russia amid labor shortages.
This deployment stands in defiance of a 2017 United Nations resolution requiring all member states to repatriate North Korean workers and cease employing them. The sanctions are founded on concerns that, under North Korean law, workers are required to remit up to 70% of their wages to the state, which the UN says helps fund Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
Many of the North Korean nationals currently in Russia entered on student visas. According to Russian border data cited by independent media outlet Mediazona, nearly 8,000 North Koreans arrived in Russia in 2024 for “educational purposes” — the highest number since 2019. The influx of North Korean “students” began to rise sharply in the third quarter of 2024.
The Insider previously reported that North Korean soldiers have been deployed to front-line combat in Russia’s war against Ukraine, likening their battlefield tactics and communications to those of World War I or II, resulting in extremely high casualties. Losses among North Korean troops were estimated at more than 20% of deployed forces. Reportedly, between 12,000 and 15,000 personnel were sent to fight in Russia.
Initial reports of North Korean forces on the front line emerged in October 2024. In January, The New York Times reported heavy losses among North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region. Despite mounting evidence, both Russian and North Korean authorities had long denied the presence of North Korean soldiers in combat roles. Then, in late April, Kim Jong Un admitted his troops’ past presence in Russia.