South Korea’s intelligence service has reported that around 5,000 North Korean construction troops have been dispatched to Russia since September, to assist with “infrastructure reconstruction,” according to a lawmaker briefed on the findings, AFP reports.
The deployment marks a deepening of military and economic ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, which have strengthened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has already supplied Russia with artillery shells, missiles, and other munitions in defiance of UN sanctions, helping sustain the Kremlin’s war effort.
According to lawmaker Lee Seong-Kweun, the troops have been moving to Russia in phases and are expected to be deployed on reconstruction projects. He said the intelligence service had detected “continued signs of training and personnel selection” for additional deployments.
South Korea estimates that around 10,000 North Korean personnel are currently deployed near the Russia-Ukraine border. At least 600 North Korean soldiers have died in the war with Ukraine and thousands more have been injured, according to South Korean intelligence.
The report also said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has grown more confident since aligning closely with Moscow and Beijing. Pyongyang has strengthened ties with Russia, and Kim’s foreign minister Choe Son Hui recently met with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss deeper cooperation.
A UN sanctions monitoring group recently reported that North Korea plans to send 40,000 labourers to Russia, including IT workers, despite a ban on overseas work under international sanctions.
