North Koreans being recruited into forced labour in Russia, report says
Summary
A report by Global Rights Compliance says a Russian broker network used student visas and bogus college enrolments to recruit North Koreans for work in Russia. The report alleges the workers faced long hours and that their wages helped fund North Korea’s military programmes; the broker’s operations director rejected the allegations.Key Facts
- The report identifies the platform KNDR.su, operated by Russian businessman Vladimir Sokolov, as a recruiter for jobs in agriculture, construction, industry and IT.
- Investigators posing as employers say operations director Ruslan Zhukov told them workers were enrolled in colleges they did not attend to avoid labour laws.
- The report says workers were expected to work 12 hours a day, six days a week.
- A 2017 UN Security Council resolution prohibits member states from hosting North Korean workers.
- A sanctions-monitoring team estimated that 35,600 to 101,280 North Korean workers were overseas in 2025, generating $450 million to $800 million for Pyongyang.
- Russia granted more than 36,000 visas to North Koreans in 2025, four times the previous year’s total; almost all were officially for education.
- Global Rights Compliance said Sokolov promoted at least two work sites linked to Russia’s military-industrial complex.
- Zhukov denied the report’s allegations and said the workers were students taking part in an educational and practical-training exchange.
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