North Korean Workers Return To Russia, Quid Pro Quo For Arms Supplies?

Three hundred North Korean workers arrived in Vladivostock, Russia earlier this month, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, a clear violation of UN sanctions on Pyongyang.  This is the first such movement of North Korean workers since the north recalled all its workers, whether in Russia or China, due to Covid.

The despatch of the workers appears to be a quid pro quo: the north sending ammunition and other ordnance to Russia for use in the Ukraine war, in exchange for the return of the workers. The north desperately needs the foreign exchange the workers earn at a time when prolonged sanctions have squeezed its room for maneuver.  Sanctions have deprived the north of around $1.3 billion in revenues.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it was too early yet to tell whether these were in fact North Korean workers, but said it was closely monitoring the situation. In recent days, Russian media have reported a meeting between Kim Su-gil, alternate member of the political bureau of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, and the leader of the Russian Federation Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov. The meeting came at around the same time that news of the North Korean workers was reported.   An unknown number of North Korean workers are also in China, clearly Beijing deliberately flouts international strictures by doing business with North Korea.

Pyongyang has always bristled at sanctions, refusing to bow to demands ranging from ending its nuclear weapons programme to improving its human rights record and giving political and economic rights to its people.

In fact, a Time magazine report of Feb 14, 2024, said strongman Kim Jong Un has “launched a fresh crackdown on his people.” It quoted Julie Turner, point person for North Korean human rights, as saying that “What we’ve seen is that the human rights situation in North Korea has worsened. Covid 19 allowed the government to tighten many of the controls inside North Korea.”