 |
| North Korea Plans the Send Workers to Region Russian-Occupied Eastern Ukraine |
Pyongyang - As the war in Ukraine enters its seventh month, North Korea has signaled its interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territory in the east of the country.
As the AP reports, the idea is publicly supported by senior Russian officials and diplomats, who predict cheap and hard-working labor could be thrown into the "most difficult conditions", the term Russia's ambassador to North Korea used in a recent interview. .
The North's ambassador to Moscow recently met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist regions in Ukraine's Donbas region and expressed optimism about cooperation in the "field of labor migration".
The talks came after North Korea in July became the only country, apart from Russia and Syria to recognize territorial independence, Donetsk and Luhansk, to further ally with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.
Hiring North Korean workers in the Donbas would clearly run counter to UN Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes. The plan also further complicates the US-led international push for nuclear disarmament.
Many experts doubt that North Korea will send workers while the war continues, with a steady flow of Western weapons helping Ukraine to counter a much larger Russian force. But they say it is highly likely North Korea will supply labor to the Donbas as the battle winds down to boost its own economy, breached by years of US-led sanctions, border closures due to the pandemic and decades of mismanagement.
The labor exports will also contribute to North Korea's long-term strategy to strengthen cooperation with Russia and China, another ideological ally, in a new partnership aimed at reducing US influence in Asia. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said North Korean construction companies had offered to help rebuild the war-torn area of Donbas, and that North Korean workers would be welcomed if they came.
It was a clear departure from Russia's position in December 2017, when it endorsed new UN Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, which requires member states to expel all North Korean workers from their territory within 24 months.
The US State Department previously estimated that about 100,000 North Koreans were working overseas in government-regulated jobs, mainly in Russia and China, but also in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and South Asia.