Up to 25,000 North Koreans work at Russian drone plants under student visas, monitor says
A report by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, cited by Bloomberg, says up to 25,000 North Korean citizens are working at Russian drone-production facilities, including the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan where Shahed-type drones are assembled. They are brought in under student visas to circumvent sanctions, earn about $7,500 a year on average, and have most of their wages confiscated by the Pyongyang regime. The report puts 2025 earnings from North Korean workers abroad at up to $800 million for Kim Jong Un's government.
Key points
- Up to 25,000 North Koreans work at Russian drone plants, including Alabuga in Tatarstan where Shahed-type drones are assembled.
- Workers are brought in on student visas to bypass sanctions; Russia issued more than 36,400 visas to DPRK citizens in 2025, almost four times the previous year, with 35,800 student visas.
- Average pay is about $7,500 a year — roughly five times what they would earn in China — but the DPRK regime confiscates most of it, sometimes more than the worker earned.
- North Korean workers abroad earned the Kim Jong Un regime up to $800 million in 2025.
- Up to 1,000 North Koreans also work at strategic Russian sites including weapons factories, steel processing and shipbuilding.
- The MSMT, an 11-state body set up in 2024 after Russia blocked the renewal of the UN Panel of Experts' mandate, produced the report; it was cited by Bloomberg.
Why it matters
The arrangement gives Russia industrial labor for a sector that directly feeds strikes on Ukraine — Shahed/Geran-type drones assembled at Alabuga — while channeling hard currency to Pyongyang for nuclear and ballistic programs barred by UN Security Council resolutions. The systematic use of student visas to import thousands of workers exposes a large-scale sanctions-evasion gap, and the post-2022 surge in North Korean labor in Russia turns the Russia-DPRK partnership from an arms-and-troops relationship into a labor-for-foreign-exchange one. Reports that the same Alabuga complex has begun recruiting young workers from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories link labor exploitation directly to the occupation.
What happened
According to a Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team report cited by Bloomberg, up to 25,000 North Korean citizens are working at Russian drone-production facilities, including the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan where Shahed-type drones are assembled. The workers are brought into Russia on student visas to circumvent sanctions; in 2025 Russia issued more than 36,400 visas to DPRK citizens, almost four times the previous year's total, of which 35,800 were student visas. Average annual pay is about $7,500 — roughly five times what the same workers could earn in China — but the DPRK regime confiscates most of it, in some cases more than the worker actually earned. North Korean workers abroad earned the Kim Jong Un regime up to $800 million in 2025. Up to 1,000 North Koreans also work at strategically important Russian sites including weapons factories, steel processing and shipbuilding, and most of the broader 15,000–30,000-strong North Korean workforce in Russia is tied to 70–80 DPRK companies. DPRK authorities tightly control the workers' movements and contacts to prevent defection, and family members of those who flee may face repression. Separately, President Zelenskyy said on August 8 that North Korea plans to send 30,000–50,000 military personnel to Russia to study modern warfare; Kim Yo Jong rejected the claim as 'baseless' and a 'self-staged incident.'
How Ukrainian sources describe it
All five supplied sources are Ukrainian. They frame the report as evidence of Russia's deepening dependence on North Korea to sustain its war effort and evade sanctions, leaning heavily on statements from Zelenskyy and Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) to underline the wartime dimension — drone production, troop transfers and ballistic-missile deliveries. Ukrainian coverage stresses the sanctions-evasion mechanisms (student visas, wage confiscation) and the human-cost angles: confiscation exceeding actual earnings, risk to families of escapees, and reports that Alabuga has been recruiting young workers from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories since August. Zelenskyy's wider view, echoed in the coverage, is that North Korea is using its participation in the war to gain experience in modern combat.
Where reporting differs
Sources diverge on the scale and purpose of any DPRK military deployment to Russia. Zelenskyy says Russia plans to involve 30,000–50,000 North Korean troops to study modern warfare; Kim Yo Jong rejected that assessment as 'baseless' and a 'self-staged incident.' Reported troop numbers also vary: HUR's autumn 2024 figure was about 12,000 in Kursk Oblast (including 500 officers); Yonhap reported in November 2025 that roughly 5,000 more had been transferred 'for infrastructure restoration'; and a deputy head of HUR cited an 8,500-strong contingent in Russia as of August 2026, including 400 drone operators.
Background
The MSMT is an 11-state grouping including the United States, South Korea and Japan, set up in 2024 after Russia blocked renewal of the UN Panel of Experts' mandate on DPRK sanctions. Russia now ranks second worldwide for hosting North Korean workers abroad, behind China, with most based in the Russian Far East — Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Sakhalin — and some in Moscow, St Petersburg and Irkutsk. DPRK authorities control workers' movements and contacts to prevent defection, and family members of escapees may face repression. Ukraine's HUR reported in autumn 2024 that about 12,000 DPRK troops (including 500 officers) had arrived in Russia's Kursk Oblast after training at eastern Russian ranges, and in November 2025 Yonhap reported roughly 5,000 more transferred 'for infrastructure restoration.'