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North Korean workers are being sent to work in factories in Russia’s agricultural and manufacturing heartland, according to an investigation that highlights the deepening economic partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.
The report by Global Rights Compliance, an international law foundation based in The Hague, cites Russian company and procurement records, archived online advertisements and photos and videos on social media. The group said it used geolocation and metadata to verify images and documents.
Ties between the two countries have deepened since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Pyongyang providing weapons and troops to support Russia’s war effort in exchange for billions of dollars in cash, fuel and cash. Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un signed a strategic partnership treaty in June 2024 providing for mutual military assistance.
GRC said the labor pipeline also generated revenue for Pyongyang, in violation of U.N. sanctions banning the use of North Korean workers abroad.
“Our findings showed that the work contributes to deepening ties between North Korea and Russia,” said Lara Strangways, GRC head of affairs and human rights. “Their work supports Russian industry, including war-related sites in Ukraine, while the revenue they generate helps fund North Korea’s military program.”
GRC identified a brokerage network led by Moscow-based businessman Vladimir Sokolov, which was designated this month as subject to EU sanctions along with two companies for trade and industrial cooperation with Pyongyang, including a joint investment project.
An archived version of the website KNDR.su, which bills itself as part of Sokolov’s Black Horse Group, promotes teams of 50 to 100 North Korean workers who, it promises, will work 12 hours a day, 28 days a month and “will not be late, miss work, drink or argue.”
The website says North Koreans should be housed separately from other nationalities and assures potential employers that they will not abscond, citing the North Korean embassy’s control over their documents and “serious consequences” at home for breaching contracts.
An apparent customer review from KNDR.su on the Russian portal Yandex is full of praise for North Korean workers: “Their output and productivity of their work turned out to be very high. I would also like to highlight their impeccable discipline. Thank you!”
GRC did not estimate the total number of North Korean workers placed by KNDR.su in Russian factories.
Between July and August, the website’s title changed from “DPRK Labor Brigades” to “DPRK Student Practice,” according to an FT study. The GRC said Russia was using student visas to hide labor deployments to avoid sanctions scrutiny.
Ruslan Zhukov, whom GRC identified as the network’s operations director, told investigators posing as potential employers that the recruits were studying by correspondence remotely while working at the factory. Zhukov later contradicted this statement when questioned by the GRC, saying the workers were students undergoing practical training.
GRC said it had identified North Korean workers producing animal feed at KPP Ruskon, a food producer in Ramenskoye near Moscow, according to social media videos and undercover investigations.
It also cites procurement records showing that an agricultural company awarded a $133,800 contract to Pyongyang LLC, a company headed by Zhukov and described by Sokolov as part of Black Horse, to arrange the placement of 50 North Koreans.
Black Horse’s website says it supplies machinery for Russian Defense Ministry orders, markets industrial machinery and exports agricultural products to North Korea. The website says Sokolov studied at Harvard University and received military honors for his assistance to Russian forces.
Black Horse, Sokolov and Zhukov did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. In a statement published last month by a Sokolov-owned media outlet, Zhukov said Pyongyang LLC operated strictly within Russian law, did not organize the recruitment of foreign labor and did not act as an agent for the employment of North Koreans.
Claims that student status was used to circumvent employment restrictions were false, the statement said.
The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, a group of 11 countries, estimated in September that Russia hosted between 15,000 and 30,000 North Korean workers at the end of last year.
U.N. human rights investigators have documented the use of threats to forcibly return workers abroad who complain about their living conditions or try to escape. North Korean workers who defect also risk reprisals against their loved ones back home, sanctions monitors said.
Shreyas Reddy of the Korea Risk Group said North Korean workers typically receive only about 10 to 25 percent of their salaries, with the rest going to North Korean state-owned companies and the regime in Pyongyang.
But the overseas positions were in demand and relatively well paid, and the quality of life for workers abroad was “significantly better than the life they could reasonably expect in North Korea,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and KPP Ruskon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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