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As the Ukraine conflict enters its seventh month, North Korea is expressing interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in the country’s east.
Senior Russian officials and diplomats openly support the plan, which envisions a cheap and hardworking workforce that could be thrown into the “most arduous conditions,” as Russia’s ambassador to North Korea put it in a recent interview.
North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow recently met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in Ukraine’s Donbas region and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labour migration,” citing his country’s easing pandemic border controls.
The talks came after North Korea became the only country, aside from Russia and Syria, to recognise the independence of the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in July, further aligning with Russia in the Ukraine conflict.
North Korean workers in Donbas would clearly violate UN Security Council sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear and missile programmes, complicating the US-led international push for its nuclear disarmament.
Many experts doubt North Korea will send workers as long as the war continues, with a steady flow of Western weapons assisting Ukraine in pushing back against much larger Russian forces.
They believe North Korea will supply labour to Donbas once the fighting subsides in order to boost its own economy, which has been battered by years of US-led sanctions, pandemic border closures, and decades of mismanagement.
The labour exports would also help North Korea’s longer-term strategy of strengthening cooperation with Russia and China, another ideological ally, in an emerging partnership aimed at reducing US influence in Asia.
North Korean construction companies have already offered to help rebuild war-torn areas in Donbas, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, and North Korean workers would be welcome if they came.
Prior to the 2017 sanctions, labour exports were a rare legitimate source of foreign currency for North Korea, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
The US State Department previously estimated that approximately 100,000 North Koreans were working in government-arranged jobs overseas, primarily in Russia and China, but also in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia.
According to civilian experts, the workers earned $200 million to $500 million per year for the North Korean government while pocketing only a fraction of their pay, often working more than 12 hours a day under constant surveillance by their country’s security agents.
While Russia returned some North Korean workers before the UN deadline in December 2019, an unknown number remained, either working or stuck after the North sealed its borders to fend off COVID-19.
North Korea could easily mobilise hundreds or even thousands of workers to Donbas if it decides to use Russian labourers, according to Kang Dong Wan, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Dong-A University.
It’s unclear how profitable Donbas would be for North Korea.
According to Lim, North Korea may be willing to be compensated with food, fuel, and machinery, an exchange that would likely violate Security Council sanctions.
According to Hong Min, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Institute for National Unification, North Korea may have bigger goals in mind than short-term gains from labour exports.
North Korea has repeatedly blamed the US for the Ukraine crisis, claiming that the West’s “hegemonic policy” justifies Russia’s military actions in Ukraine to protect itself.
Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly condemned the resumption of large-scale military exercises between the United States and South Korea this year, accusing the allies of inciting North Korea and exacerbating tensions.
Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, has backed its dubious claim that its COVID-19 outbreak was caused by South Korean activists who flew anti-North Korean leaflets and other materials across the border with balloons.
Nam Sung-wook, a professor at South Korea’s Korea University’s unification and diplomacy department, is one of the few experts who believes labour exports will begin soon.
“Pyongyang and Moscow’s interests are aligning,” Nam said. “A hundred or 200 workers could grow to 10,000.”
