North Korea is sending 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers to Russia’s Kursk oblast, where Moscow is repairing widespread damage from a Ukrainian incursion, according to a top Kremlin official.
Presidential security adviser Sergei Shoigu said the workers would help rebuild the strategic border region, which was invaded by the Ukrainian military last August and retaken by Russian forces earlier this year.
The dispatch of the workers was discussed in Mr Shoigu’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, state media outlet KCNA reported on Wednesday.
The meeting between the North Korean leader and Mr Shoigu, secretary of the Russian security council and a close aide of president Vladimir Putin, took place in Pyongyang on Tuesday where the two discussed a “special military operation” in the Kursk region.
This was the former Russian defence minister’s second meeting with the leader in less than three months.
They also discussed mutual cooperation plans for Moscow’s rebuilding of the Kursk region, KCNA stated.
They further talked about commemorating the “heroic feats” of North Korean troops who fought alongside the Russians in Kursk.
In April, Mr Putin congratulated his military after Russia claimed to have expelled all Ukrainian troops from Kursk with the help of North Korean soldiers. Kyiv has denied losing territory in Kursk.
His comments had come shortly after a rare admission by North Korea that it had sent troops to fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine.
KCNA reported North Korea’s ruling party as saying its contribution in Kursk showed the "highest strategic level of the firm militant friendship" with Russia.
The latest decision by North Korea to send workers to Russia was criticised by South Korea, with the rival country’s foreign ministry saying on Wednesday the dispatch would be a clear violation of UN sanctions. The ministry called on Pyongyang to immediately halt such cooperations with Russia.
Meanwhile, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung and Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed to cooperate further on North Korea as they met at the G7 summit in Canada, their offices said.
According to American, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence officials, North Korea sent over 10,000 soldiers to Russia last fall in its first participation in a major armed conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War.
More than 6,000 of them were killed or injured fighting in Kursk, the British defence ministry said in an assessment on Sunday.
“Democratic People's Republic of Korea forces have highly likely sustained more than 6,000 casualties in offensive combat operations against Ukrainian forces in the Russian oblast of Kursk,” the ministry said, using North Korea’s official name.
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