North Korea plans to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to support reconstruction work in Russia’s Kursk region, a top Russian official said on Tuesday, the latest sign of expanding cooperation between the nations.
North Korea has already supplied thousands of combat 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, although Ukraine has said it still has troops there.
Wrapping up a one-day visit to Pyongyang, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un decided to send 1,000 sappers to clear mines in the Kursk region and 5,000 military construction workers to restore infrastructure there, Russia’s state-run TASS reported.
Photo: Korean Central News Agency via EPA-EFE
“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,” the state-run RIA Novosti quoted Shoigu as saying. “This is a kind of brotherly aid being sent by the Korean people and their leader, Kim Jong-un, to our country.”
Moscow and Pyongyang agreed to erect memorials in both countries in honor of North Korean soldiers who died while fighting in the Kursk region, TASS and RIA Novosti quoted Shoigu as saying.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) yesterday said that Kim confirmed the contents of North Korea’s cooperation with Russia with regard to Kursk’s current situation, but did not mention the dispatch of army construction workers and deminers cited by Russian media.
KCNA quoted Kim as expressing his resolve to “invariably and unconditionally support” what he called Russian efforts to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “grave concern” over what it described as ongoing illicit cooperation between North Korea and Russia, while the US Department of State told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency that Pyongyang was “now relying on Russia to provide it with desperately needed funds in exchange for labor and soldier-for-hire schemes.”
South Korea, the US and Japan yesterday flew fighter jets for trilateral aerial training off South Korea’s southern Jeju Island as part of their efforts to boost security cooperation to cope with North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats, the South Korean air force said.
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