[Anchor]

Circumstances indicating that North Korea is dispatching a large number of female workers to Russia are being confirmed one after another. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president claimed that North Korea will deploy up to 50,000 additional troops to the Russia-Ukraine war. This means young North Korean women are being sent to Russian factories, while young men are heading to the Russian battlefield.

Reporter Kim Ayeong has the details.

[Reporter]

This photo was released yesterday (August 9) on the Telegram channel of the Russian media outlet Ostorozhno Novosti.

Those wearing matching white clothes while carrying black duffel bags and backpacks are North Korean female workers.

The outlet stated that North Korean female workers are being sent to production sites across Russia through employment agencies, and that the fields they are deployed to include assembly production processes, food manufacturing, and the garment industry.

It reported that they work in groups of 40, with a wage level of about 480 rubles per hour, which is equivalent to around 8,000 won in South Korean currency.

Videos presumed to show North Korean women working in logistics warehouses of Russian e-commerce companies are also being released through local media and social networking services.

[The people here with us are workers from North Korea. They are replacing the local workforce.]

Estimates have suggested that the scale of North Korean workers dispatched to Russia following the Russia-Ukraine war is about 30,000, and it is analyzed that a significant portion of the role of earning foreign currency in industrial sites falls on female workers.

[Doo Jin-ho / Director of the Eurasia Center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy: With military mobilization and population decline overlapping, Russia is facing a severe labor shortage, and recently, the deployment of North Korean female workers to civilian rear-guard industries has also been on an expanding trend.]

Young North Korean men are being deployed to the battlefield.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy claimed yesterday that North Korea has decided to send between 30,000 and up to 50,000 troops to Russia, emphasizing the need for cooperation with South Korea.

Amid the prolonged Russia-Ukraine war, the close ties between North Korea and Russia are showing aspects of expanding in all directions.

(Video Editing: Choi Jin-hwa)