Russia to recruit 12,000 workers from North Korea to assemble drones, Ukraine's intel says
Photo: Russia plans to recruit workers from North Korea to assemble Shahed drones (wikipedia.org/دارکاخ)
Russia plans to bring in up to 12,000 North Korean workers to work at enterprises in the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan, where Shahed/Geran drones are manufactured, which are used to attack Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, according to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR).
The recruitment of workers from North Korea is planned for the end of 2025. The issue of so-called importing labor was discussed at the end of October at the Russian Foreign Ministry, where Russian officials met with representatives of the North Korean company Jihyang Technology Trade Company, which is involved in the selection of workers.
North Korean workers are promised to be paid approximately $2.5 per hour, with shifts lasting at least 12 hours.
"Such measures indicate a deepening of strategic cooperation between the two dictatorships to continue their aggressive war against Ukraine," the HUR emphasizes.
Russia is capable of producing up to 2,700 Geran-2 strike drones (conventional Shaheds) per month, as well as a large number of decoy drones.
The Russian Geran-3 jet drone (analogous to the Shahed-238) was found to contain foreign parts: more than half of them were manufactured in the US, while others were made in China, Switzerland, Germany, Britain, and Japan. The HUR notes that the drone replicates the design of previous models and contains parts previously identified in other types of Russian weapons.
