Russia Uses 25,000 North Koreans to Build Drones — SkimNews
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- Russia employs up to 25,000 North Korean workers disguised as students to assemble military drones at facilities including Alabuga in Tatarstan, per a Sept. 16 report by an 11-nation sanctions monitoring team.
- North Korean workers abroad earned up to US$800 million for Kim Jong Un's regime in 2025, funds that violate UN Security Council resolutions by financing its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
- North Korean laborers in Russia earn an average of US$7,500 per year, with most wages confiscated by Pyongyang — and in some cases the forfeited amount exceeds their actual earnings.
- Monthly wages in Russia are up to five times higher than what North Koreans can earn in China, with Russia now hosting 15,000–30,000 laborers compared with China's 20,000–70,000.
- The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, an 11-nation group including the US, South Korea, and Japan, was created after Russia's 2024 veto ended a UN panel's 15-year mandate to monitor North Korea sanctions.
- DPRK authorities exercise extreme control over laborers' movements and interactions to prevent defections, and defectors risk reprisals against family members remaining in North Korea.
Why it matters: The arrangement gives Russia wartime industrial labour while funnelling up to $800 million to North Korea's prohibited nuclear and missile programmes — eroding a sanctions framework Moscow once helped enforce. With Russia now paying up to five times China-level wages, Pyongyang gains its most lucrative labour market while the two sanctioned states deepen their war-economy entanglement.
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