Northern Koreans say BBC that they are sent to work “like slaves”

Thousands of northern Koreans go to work in slave conditions in Russia to fill a huge labor deficit, will deteriorate Russia’s constant invasion of Ukraine, the BBC reports.

Moscow has repeatedly addressed Pyongyang to help her fight the war using her missiles, artillery shells and soldiers.

Now that many men of Russia are either killed or related to the fighting – either the South Korean intelligence officials said that Moscow is increasingly relying on North Korean workers.

We have interviewed six North Korean workers who fled Russia since the beginning of the war, as well as government officials, researchers and those who help to save the workers.

They talked in detail how men were subjected to “disorderly” working conditions, and how the North Korean authorities strengthen their control over the workers to stop their escape.

One of the workers, Gin, told the BBC that when he landed in the Far East of Russia, he was allotted from the airport to the North Korean security agent who ordered him not to talk to anyone or look at anything.

“The outside world is our enemy,” the agent told him. It was put directly to the construction of the multi -storey apartment building for 18 hours a day, he said.

All the six workers we talked to, described the same punish working days, wake up at 6 am and were forced to build multi-storey apartments by 2am the next morning, only two days of exit.

We changed their names to protect them.

“It was horrible to wake up, realizing that it was necessary to repeat the same day again,” said another construction worker TE, who was avoided by Russia last year. TA reminded how his hands will admire the morning, unable to open, paralyzed from the work of the previous day.

“Some people leave their post to sleep that day, or fall asleep, but the wardens found them and beat them. It was exactly the way we died,” another worker said.

“The conditions are really impeccable,” said Kan Dong-Van-Wan, Professor of the University of South Korea, who traveled to Russia several times to interview North Korea workers.

“Workers are subjected to a very dangerous situation. At night, the lights were, and they work in the dark, with little security equipment.”

The shoots told us that the workers are timed to their construction monuments day and night, where they are observed by agents from the North Korean State Security Division. They sleep in dirty, crowded cargo containers, infected bugs or on the floor of unfinished apartment blocks, and the tarpaulin pulled the door frame to try to avoid colds.

One employee, we said that one day he fell four meters from his construction site and “smashed” his face without letting him work. Even then, his executives did not allow him to leave the site for visiting the hospital.

In the past, tens of thousands of northern Koreans worked in Russia, earning millions of pounds a year for North Korea leader Kim Jong -un and his regime laid down. Then, in 2019, the UN banned the countries to use these workers trying to disable Kim’s funds and stop it to build nuclear weapons, that is, most were sent home.

But last year, more than 10,000 workers were sent to Russia, according to a South Korean intelligence official who made an anonymous BBC. They told us that this year would arrive even more, and Pyongyang may have sent more than 50,000 workers.

Sudden tributary means that North Korean workers are “universally in Russia”, the official added. While most are working on large-scale construction projects, others were assigned to clothing factories and IT centers, according to UN sanctions that prohibit the use of North Korean work.

The Russian government’s indicators show This more than 13,000 northern Koreans entered the country in 2024, which increased 12 times compared to last year. Almost 8,000 of them entered student visas, but according to intelligence and experts, this is the tactic that Russia used to bypass the UN ban.

In June, a high -ranking Russian official Sergei Shoigu admitted that 5,000 northern Koreans would be sent to the restoration of Kursk, the Russian region, confiscated by the Ukrainian forces last year, but have since pushed back.

The South Korean official told us that it is also “very likely”, some North Koreans will soon be deployed to work on projects to restore Russian territories.

“Russia is now suffering from a serious labor deficit, and the North Koreans offer the perfect solution. They are cheap, hard-working and do not get into trouble,” said Andrei Lankov, Professor of the University of Cukina in Seoul and a well-known expert on North Korea-Russia.

These foreign construction jobs are very desirable in North Korea because they promise to pay better than work at home. Most workers are hoping to avoid poverty and will be able to buy a home for their family or start a business when they return. After the hard check, only the most trusted men are selected, and they must leave their families behind.

But the bulk of their profits are sent directly to the North Korean state as a “loyalty”. The rest of the share is usually between 100-200 dollars (£ 74- £ 149) per month-brought on the book. Workers get this money only when they return home – a recent tactic, experts say to stop running away.

Once men understand the reality of harsh work and lack of salary, it can collapse. Ta said that he was “ashamed” when he learned that other builders from Central Asia pay five times more than a third of his work. “I felt that I was in a work camp; a prison without grating,” he said.

Gin’s apology still broke away when he remembers how other workers call them slaves. “You are not men, but just cars that can talk,” they needed. At one point, Gin’s leader told him he couldn’t get money when he returned to North Korea because the state needs it. It was then that he decided to risk his life to escape.

Tae made a decision on defects after watching the video on YouTube showing how many workers in South Korea have been paid. One night, he packed his items in the garbage lining, stuffed the blanket under the sheets to look as if he was still asleep, and released from his construction site. He greeted a taxi and drove thousands of kilometers across the country to meet a lawyer who helped organize his journey to Seoul.

In recent years, a small number of workers have been able to organize their shoots using prohibited smartphones acquired, keeping the small daily help they received for cigarettes and alcohol.

In an attempt to prevent these shoots, several sources have told us that the North Korean authorities are now clearing the already limited freedom of workers.

According to Professor Kont of the University of Dun-A, one of the regime ways tried to control workers over the last year, subjected to more frequent ideological training and sessions of self-criticism, in which they are forced to announce their loyalty to Kim John Un and record their failures.

Rare opportunities were also reduced to leave construction sites. “The workers came out in groups once a month, but recently these trips have decreased to almost zero,” Professor Kahn added.

Kim Seoun-Chul, an activist based in Seoul, who helps to save North Korean workers from Russia, said these excursions are more severely controlled. “They used to leave in pairs, but since 2023 they had to travel in five groups and monitoring more intensively.”

In this climate, less workers can escape. The South Korean government told us that the number of Northern Koreans leaves Russia every year and the arrival in Seoul has halved from 2022 – about 20 to 10 to 10.

Mr. Lankov, an expert on North Korea-Russia, said the repression is probably preparing for many more workers.

“These workers will be a strong heritage of Kim and Putin,” he said, claiming that the workers will continue to arrive long after the war, and the deployment of soldiers and weapons stopped.

Additional report by Jake Kvon and Hos Lee