Pyongyang: North Korea will send military builders and deminers to help restore Russia's Kursk region, Russian news agencies reported Moscow's security chief as saying Tuesday while he was on a trip to Pyongyang. North Korea has become one of Russia's main allies during Moscow's years-long war in Ukraine.
According to France24.com, North Korea will dispatch 1,000 deminers and 5,000 military construction workers to support reconstruction work in Russia's Kursk region. This development was reported by Russian state media, marking another sign of expanding military partnership between the two nations. The dispatch was confirmed by Sergei Shoigu, a top Russian security official, during his visit to Pyongyang for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Russia's Tass news agency had earlier reported Shoigu's arrival in the North Korean capital on Tuesday, carrying out an unspecified special mission from Russian President Putin, with an expected meeting with Kim Jong Un. However, North Korean state media has not yet confirmed the visit.
In April, both Pyongyang and Moscow officially acknowledged the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, noting that soldiers from both countries were jointly defending against a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region. During that period, President Putin expressed his gratitude to North Korea for its involvement in the conflict and vowed to remember their sacrifices.
Additionally, in April, South Korea's spy agency reported to lawmakers that North Korea had suffered 4,700 casualties, including 600 deaths, on the Russia-Ukraine battlefronts. The National Intelligence Service highlighted that 15,000 North Korean laborers had also been sent to Russia under bilateral industrial cooperation programs, as per lawmakers who attended the NIS's closed-door briefing.