The North Korean presence in the Russian-Ukrainian war went beyond the limits of field military support and the supply of weapons and ammunition, extending to the civilian production sectors inside Russia, where thousands of workers work in factories, farms, and warehouses, at a time when long-range Ukrainian strikes threaten their locations.
A Wall Street Journal report stated that about 20 warehouses belonging to Wildberries, the largest e-commerce company in Russia, were subjected to drone strikes during the summer. The newspaper quoted South Korean officials who viewed video clips that at least one of the targeted sites included North Korean female workers. These attacks resulted in the deaths of at least nine people, without the Russian authorities announcing the nationalities of the victims, leaving uncertainty surrounding whether there were any North Koreans killed or not.
Despite the security risks and the approaching combat operations, Russian demand for North Korean labor continues. In August, an advertisement was spotted targeting the recruitment of Korean language translators to work in Wildberries warehouses.
In the same context, a report issued by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) on September 16 revealed that the number of North Korean workers deployed in at least 17 countries ranges between 35,600 and more than 101,000 workers, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring their return to their country. Russia and China top the list of countries hosting these workers, as it is estimated that there are between 15,000 and 30,000 North Korean workers inside Russian territory, distributed across the sectors of military drone manufacturing, steel processing, shipbuilding, and agriculture.
The recent period has witnessed a qualitative shift in the expansion of the recruitment of North Korean women, after employment for decades was limited to men in the fields of construction, forestry, and hard work. According to the Wall Street Journal, a Russian seafood and caviar processing factory sought in September to attract 30 female workers, while in August a Moscow employment agency offered a team of 40 women to work in cooking, production lines, and textile manufacturing, with a monthly salary of approximately $1,800.
Peter Ward, a researcher at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, points out that the recruitment of women reflects Pyongyang’s effort to diversify sources of revenue for its citizens working abroad, in parallel with the Russian market’s need for millions of new workers by 2030, according to estimates by the Russian Ministry of Labor.
The “MSMT” team estimates that North Korean workers abroad generate an annual income ranging between 450 and 800 million dollars, while testimonies of former workers reported by the “Wall Street Journal” indicate that the Pyongyang authorities may seize up to 90% of these incomes, which the team links to financing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Official data show that Russia issued more than 36,000 visas to North Koreans last year, representing about four times the number recorded in 2024, and a large portion of them were student visas. However, the MSMT team confirms that student and other visas are regularly used as a cover to bring workers into Russia.
Thus, the strategic partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang expands to move from combat fronts and military supplies to production lines and civilian labor, at a time when vital facilities that include North Korean workers have become vulnerable to long-range Ukrainian strikes, following North Korea’s acknowledgment of sending forces to fight alongside Russian forces.
