“GUR reports on Russia’s plans to attract up to 12,000 workers from the DPRK by 2025 to work at enterprises in Tatarstan where Shahed drones are manufactured”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
The GUR reminds that it is in Alabuz that long-range Shaded/Geranium type drones are manufactured, with which the Russian army strikes Ukraine.
“To discuss the details of the sale of workers, at the end of October, a meeting of local government officials with representatives of the North Korean company Jihyang Technology Trade Company, responsible for the search and selection of Korean workers, was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation,” the message reads.
Such measures testify to the deepening of strategic cooperation between the two dictatorships for the continuation of the aggressive war against Ukraine, the GUR summarizes.
There is no confirmation of this information from other sources.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) previously reported that North Korea has sent about 5,000 military construction personnel to Russia since September, “expectedly to restore infrastructure.” It was also reported that almost 10,000 North Korean soldiers are stationed near the Russian-Ukrainian border, where they perform “security duties.”
Since October last year, according to intelligence, North Korea has sent approximately 13,000 of its military personnel to Russia. They took part in battles mostly on the territory of the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, where Ukrainian troops entered in August 2024. Several North Koreans were captured by the ZSU.
The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in a report in July that Russia and North Korea appear to be trying to use more covert ways to create pathways, including through labor migration, through which North Korean citizens can join the Russian military.
The multilateral sanctions monitoring group, which includes 11 countries, released a report at the end of May in which it indicated that North Korea has supplied Russia with more than 20,000 containers of ammunition since September 2023, thus facilitating Russian strikes on Ukraine, particularly on critical infrastructure.
Pyongyang and Moscow, which ratified the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty in November 2024, deny arms deliveries, but in April North Korea confirmed the participation of North Korean troops in combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region.