North Korea sent a large number of workers to Russia last year, as well as troops, according to the National Intelligence Service in Seoul.
The NIS said Sunday 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.
In October last year, 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 $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 Rep. Wi Sung-lac, who was Seoul's ambassador to Russia.
"I think North Korean workers may have been recruited to make up for the labor shortages after many were drafted for the war," Wi told The Korea Herald on Sunday.
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 laborers. 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 progres with Russia, which is not uninterested 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 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his address Friday that North Korean soldiers have been brought back to the front line in Russia's Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine.
The NIS said in January that North Korean soldiers appeared to have been withdrawn from operations in Kursk, likely due to troop losses.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 of 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 last year. North Korean soldiers are being paid around $2,000 a month each, the NIS said.
arin@heraldcorp.com
