North Korea plans to send military construction workers and deminers to Russia

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea will send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to support reconstruction work in Russia's Kursk region, a top Russian official said Tuesday, the latest sign of expanding cooperation between the two nations.

North Korea has already sent thousands of troops and a vast amount of conventional weapons to back Russia's war against Ukraine. In April, Pyongyang and Moscow said that their soldiers fought together to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region, though Ukraine has insisted it still has troops present there.

During a visit to Pyongyang, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said that North Korea will dispatch 1,000 deminers as well as 5,000 military construction workers to the Kursk region, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

''Following the expulsion of invaders from Russian soil, we've agreed to continue our constructive cooperation, with the Korean side providing assistance in the restoration of the Kursk region,'' Shoigu said, according to RIA Novosti. "This is a kind of brotherly aid being sent by the Korean people and their leader, Kim Jong Un, to our country.''

Another Russian state news agency, Tass, said that Shoigu met with Kim. North Korea's state media hasn't reported about the meeting.

RIA Novosti quoted Shoigu as saying that Moscow and Pyongyang decided to erect memorials in both countries in honor of North Korean soldiers who died while fighting in the Kursk region.

North Korea and Russia have never disclosed how many North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and how many of them were killed. But according to South Korean, U.S. and Ukraine assessments, about 15,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia. South Korea's spy agency said in April that about 600 North Korean soldiers died on the Russia-Ukraine battlefronts.

It was Shoigu's second visit to North Korea this month. In his earlier Pyongyang trip, Kim told him that North Korea would ''unconditionally support'' Russia's war against Ukraine, according to North Korea's state media.

The deepening ties between North Korea and Russia have raised worries among the U.S., South Korea and their partners that Russian President Vladimir Putin may in return provide Kim with much-needed sophisticated technologies that can help advance his nuclear and missile programs.

The two countries, both in confrontations with the U.S. and its allies, have sharply grown closer to each other in recent years. In 2024, Kim and Putin signed a landmark defense treaty that requires each side to provide aid if the other is attacked.

In its closed-door briefing to lawmakers, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said that Russia had given North Korea air defense missiles, electronic warfare equipment, drones and technology for spy satellite launches. The NIS said that 15,000 North Korean laborers have also been sent to Russia under bilateral industrial cooperation programs, according to lawmakers who attended the briefing.

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Katie Marie Davies reported from Manchester, England. Dasha Litvinova contributed to this report from Tallinn, Estonia. ___

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