World News
North Koreans tell BBC they are being sent to work ‘like slaves’ in Russia
Thousands of North Koreans are being sent to work in slave-like conditions in Russia to fill a huge labour shortage exacerbated by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the BBC has learned.
Moscow has repeatedly turned to Pyongyang to help it fight the war, using its missiles, artillery shells and its soldiers.
Now, with many of Russia’s men either killed or tied up fighting – or having fled the country – South Korean intelligence officials have told the BBC that Moscow is increasingly relying on North Korean labourers.
We interviewed six North Korean workers who have fled Russia since the start of the war, along with government officials, researchers and those helping to rescue the labourers.
They detailed how the men are subjected to “abysmal” working conditions, and how the North Korean authorities are tightening their control over the workers to stop them escaping.
One of the workers, Jin, told the BBC that when he landed in Russia’s Far East, he was chaperoned from the airport to a construction site by a 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. He was put straight to work building high-rise apartment blocks for more than 18 hours a day, he said.
All six workers we spoke to described the same punishing workdays – waking at 6am and being forced to build high-rise apartments until 2am the next morning, with just two days off a year.
We have changed their names to protect them.
“Waking up was terrifying, realising you had to repeat the same day over again,” said another construction worker, Tae, who managed to escape Russia last year. Tae recalled how his hands would seize up in the morning, unable to open, paralysed from the previous day’s work.
“Some people would leave their post to sleep in the day, or fall asleep standing up, but the supervisors would find them and beat them. It was truly like we were dying,” said another of the workers, Chan.
“The conditions are truly abysmal,” said Kang Dong-wan, a professor at South Korea’s Dong-A University who has travelled to Russia multiple times to interview North Korean labourers.
“The workers are exposed to very dangerous situations. At night the lights are turned out and they work in the dark, with little safety equipment.”
The escapees told us that the workers are confined to their construction sites day and night, where they are watched by agents from North Korea’s state security department. They sleep in dirty, overcrowded shipping containers, infested with bugs, or on the floor of unfinished apartment blocks, with tarps pulled over the door frames to try to keep out the cold.
One labourer, Nam, said he once fell four metres off his building site and “smashed up” his face, leaving him unable to work. Even then his supervisors would not let him leave the site to visit a hospital.
In the past, tens of thousands of North Koreans worked in Russia earning millions of pounds a year for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and his cash-strapped regime. Then in 2019, the UN banned countries from using these workers in an attempt to cut off Kim’s funds and stop him building nuclear weapons, meaning most were sent home.
But last year more than 10,000 labourers were sent to Russia, according to a South Korean intelligence official speaking to the BBC on the condition of anonymity. They told us that even more were expected to arrive this year, with Pyongyang possibly dispatching more than 50,000 workers in total.
The sudden influx means North Korean workers are now “everywhere in Russia,” the official added. While most are working on large-scale construction projects, others have been assigned to clothing factories and IT centres, they said, in violation of the UN sanctions banning the use of North Korean labour.
Russian government figures show that more than 13,000 North Koreans entered the country in 2024, a 12-fold increase from the previous year. Nearly 8,000 of them entered on student visas but, according to the intelligence official and experts, this is a tactic used by Russia to bypass the UN ban.
In June, a senior Russian official, Sergei Shoigu, admitted for the first time that 5,000 North Koreans would be sent to rebuild Kursk, a Russian region seized by Ukrainian forces last year but who have since been pushed back.
The South Korean official told us it was also “highly likely” some North Koreans would soon be deployed to work on reconstruction projects in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
“Russia is suffering a severe labour shortage right now and North Koreans offer the perfect solution. They are cheap, hard-working and don’t get into trouble,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a renowned expert in North Korea-Russia relations.
These overseas construction jobs are highly coveted in North Korea as they promise to pay better than the work at home. Most workers go hoping to escape poverty and be able to buy a house for their family or start a business when they return. Only the most trusted men are selected after being rigorously vetted, and they must leave their families behind.
But the bulk of their earnings is sent straight to the North Korean state as “loyalty fees”. The remaining fraction – usually between $100-200 (£74-£149) a month – is marked down on a ledger. The workers only receive this money when they return home – a recent tactic, experts say, to stop them running away.
Once the men realise the reality of the harsh work and lack of pay, it can be shattering. Tae said he was “ashamed” when he learnt that other construction workers from central Asia were being paid five times more than him for a third of the work. “I felt like I was in a labour camp; a prison without bars,” he said.
The labourer Jin still bristles when he remembers how the other workers would call them slaves. “You are not men, just machines that can speak,” they jeered. At one point, Jin’s manager told him he might not receive any money when he returned to North Korea because the state needed it instead. It was then he decided to risk his life to escape.
Tae made the decision to defect after watching YouTube videos showing how much workers in South Korea were paid. One night, he packed his belongings into a bin liner, stuffed a blanket under his bed sheets to make it look as if he was still sleeping, and crept out of his construction site. He hailed a taxi and travelled thousands of kilometres across the country to meet a lawyer who helped arrange his journey on to Seoul.
In recent years, a small number of workers have been able to orchestrate their escapes using forbidden second-hand smartphones, bought by saving the small daily allowance they received for cigarettes and alcohol.
In an attempt to prevent these escapes, multiple sources have told us that the North Korean authorities are now cracking down on workers’ already limited freedom.
According to Prof Kang from Dong-A University, one way the regime has tried to control the workers over the last year is by subjecting them to more frequent ideological training and self-criticism sessions, in which they are forced to declare their loyalty to Kim Jong Un and log their failings.
Rare opportunities to leave construction sites have also been cut. “The workers used to go out in groups once a month, but recently these trips have reduced to almost zero,” Prof Kang added.
Kim Seung-chul, a Seoul-based activist who helps rescue North Korean workers from Russia, said these outings were being more tightly controlled. “They used to be allowed to leave in pairs, but since 2023 they have had to travel in groups of five and are monitored more intensely.”
In this climate, fewer workers are managing to escape. The South Korean government told us the number of North Koreans making it out of Russia each year and arriving in Seoul had halved since 2022 – from around 20 a year to just 10.
Mr Lankov, the expert in North Korea-Russia relations, said the crackdowns were likely in preparation for many more workers arriving.
“These workers will be the lasting legacy of Kim and Putin’s wartime friendship,” he said, arguing the workers would continue arriving long after the war had ended, and the deployment of soldiers and weapons had ceased.
Additional reporting by Jake Kwon and Hosu Lee
Romania says a Russian drone has breached its airspace – the second Nato country to report such an incursion.
Romanian fighter jets were in the air monitoring a Russian attack in Ukraine on Saturday and were able to track the drone near Ukraine’s southern border, the defence ministry said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the incursion could not be a mistake – it was “an obvious expansion of the war by Russia”. Moscow has not commented on the Romanian claims.
On Wednesday, Poland said it had shot down at least three Russian drones which had entered its airspace.
In its statement, Romania’s defence ministry said it detected the Russian drone when two F-16 jets were monitoring they country’s border with Ukraine, after “Russian air attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure on the Danube”.
The drone was detected 20km (12.4 miles) south-west of the village of Chilia Veche, before disappearing from the radar.
But it did not fly over populated areas or pose imminent danger, the ministry said.
Poland also responded to concerns over Russian drones on Saturday.
“Preventative operations of aviation – Polish and allied – have begun in our airspace,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a post on X.
“Ground-based air defence systems have reached the highest state of readiness.”
Earlier this week Russia’s defence ministry said there had been “no plans” to target facilities on Polish soil.
Belarus, a close Russian ally, said the drones which entered Polish airspace on Wednesday were an accident, after their navigation systems were jammed.
On Sunday, the Czech Republic announced it had sent a special operations helicopter unit to Poland.
The unit consists of three Mi-171S helicopters, each one capable of transporting up to 24 personnel and featuring full combat equipment.
The move is in response to Russian’s incursion into Nato’s eastern flank, the Czech Defence Minister Jana Cernochova said.
In response to the latest drone incursion, President Zelensky said the Russian military “knows exactly where their drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air”.
He has consistently asked Western countries to tighten sanctions on Moscow.
US President Donald Trump also weighed in on airspace breach earlier this week, saying he was “ready” to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, but only if Nato countries met certain conditions, such as stopping buying Russian oil.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has been making slow progress in the battlefield.
Trump has been leading efforts to end the war, but Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin returned from a summit with Trump in Alaska last month.
World News
French President Emmanuel Macron appoints Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu as new Prime Minister
Paris ( Imran Y. CHOUDHRY):- French President Macron late Tuesday appointed Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as France’s new prime minister, the country’s fourth in about a year.
Lecornu, 39, is the youngest defence minister in French history and architect of a major military buildup through 2030, spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A former conservative who joined Macron’s centrist movement in 2017, he has held posts on local authorities, overseas territories and during Macron’s yellow vest “great debate”, where he managed mass anger with dialogue. He also offered talks on autonomy during unrest in Guadeloupe in 2021.
His rise reflects Macron’s instinct to reward loyalty, but also the need for continuity as repeated budget showdowns have toppled his predecessors and left France in drift.
There were celebrations across France after Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a vote of confidence in the National Assembly on Monday. MPs ousted Bayrou by 364 votes to 194 over his austerity budget, which aimed to cut €44 billion to reduce the country’s national debt. ‘Farewell drinks’ for the prime minister were held in several cities, with many happy to see the back of a prime minister widely seen as having little popular mandate. However, there was concern in other quarters over France’s growing political instability.
Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : In a world where powerful nations proudly proclaim themselves as guardians of peace, human rights, and prosperity, humanity finds itself facing a bitter irony. The very countries that claim to champion democracy and protect innocent lives are also the largest producers and exporters of weapons of mass destruction. They present themselves as leaders of a compassionate, progressive, and peaceful global order, yet their economies thrive on creating machines of death that fuel wars, destabilize regions, and leave millions of innocent civilians suffering.
The United States sits atop this paradox, projecting itself as the ultimate protector of human rights, democracy, and freedom, while simultaneously leading the world in arms production. American defense giants like Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon Technologies), Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics dominate the global weapons market, generating defense revenues exceeding $246 billion annually. These corporations design and build technologies so advanced and lethal that they could destroy the world many times over. More troubling is the reality that the survival of these companies, and the jobs and profits they sustain, depends on perpetual conflict. The more wars there are, the greater the demand for their weapons, and the greater the growth of their revenues and influence. In 2024, the United States alone accounted for 43% of the world’s total arms exports, while global military spending crossed an unprecedented $2.44 trillion.
Following closely behind, the United Kingdom proudly claims the mantle of being a defender of global rights and humanitarian values, yet its defense sector plays an equally significant role in perpetuating conflicts. Its leading defense contractor, BAE Systems, ranks among the top global arms manufacturers, earning nearly $30 billion annually from the production of fighter jets, warships, and missile systems that find their way into war-torn regions. While London speaks of upholding peace and protecting civilians, its weapons often contribute directly to the destruction of those very lives.
China and Russia, positioned as counterweights to Western dominance, are no less invested in the economics of militarization. China, under the banner of “peaceful modernization,” has emerged as the third-largest weapons producer, with companies like AVIC, Norinco, and CETC collectively earning over $57 billion annually. It has developed cutting-edge systems, including the J-20 stealth fighter, hypersonic missiles, and naval destroyers, strengthening its position across the Asia-Pacific. At the same time, the United States’ creation of an expansive ring of missile defense systems stretching across the South China Sea, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific has created a dangerous tinderbox where even a minor miscalculation could ignite a devastating conflict. Russia, through its state-owned conglomerate Rostec, generates over $21 billion annually by producing S-400 missile defense systems, Su-35 fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery systems, supplying weapons not only for its own military operations but also to proxy nations aligned with Moscow’s interests. In Ukraine, Russian-made weapons and Western-supplied arms clash daily, turning the country into a laboratory of destruction where innocent civilians suffer the consequences of great-power rivalry.
Amid these competing superpowers, Israel presents yet another paradox. While accusing other nations, particularly Iran, of pursuing weapons of mass destruction, Israel itself is a major arms exporter and maintains one of the most advanced nuclear and missile capabilities in the world. Its defense firms collectively generate over $12 billion annually, developing cutting-edge drones, anti-missile systems, and precision-guided munitions. Many of these technologies are exported to regions already embroiled in conflict, while others are deployed directly in Gaza and the West Bank, where their usage has caused devastating civilian casualties. Israel’s defense industry has positioned the country as both a buyer and seller of destruction, all while claiming to act solely in the name of security and self-defense.
This is the grim irony of our time: the countries that boast of being peacemakers and champions of human rights are also the largest merchants of war. Their economies are heavily tied to weapons production, creating a vicious cycle where economic prosperity depends on sustaining conflict. A single corporation like Lockheed Martin earns more annually than the combined GDP of many low-income nations. Instead of directing resources toward alleviating poverty, combating climate change, and advancing healthcare and education, the global powers pour trillions into developing weapons capable of wiping out humanity.
The consequences of this relentless militarization are profound. As these powerful nations produce increasingly destructive weapons, they make the world less stable, less safe, and less humane. Wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Kashmir, and the South China Sea are not isolated tragedies—they are symptoms of a deeper sickness in a world where power, greed, and profit dictate global priorities. Civilians pay the ultimate price, as bombs flatten their homes, missiles kill their children, and entire generations grow up amid rubble and trauma. Every year, thousands of innocent men, women, and children are killed or maimed, not because they started wars, but because they are caught between powers competing for influence and dominance.
What makes this tragedy even more alarming is that the very powers manufacturing these weapons cannot escape the chaos they unleash. History has repeatedly shown that destruction spreads. A world destabilized by endless wars, fueled by weapons flowing across borders, eventually threatens the prosperity, security, and stability of the nations that created this vicious cycle. The illusion that they can remain islands of peace and prosperity while exporting destruction is fading. No society is immune to the blowback of perpetual conflict.
The rise of smaller players in the global arms trade further intensifies this dangerous dynamic. Countries like Turkey, once peripheral in weapons manufacturing, now have six firms ranked among the world’s top 100 arms producers, supplying drones, artillery, and combat vehicles used in conflicts stretching from Libya to the Caucasus. Israel, too, stands at the forefront of the military-industrial race, while increasingly volatile regions like the Middle East have become testing grounds for deadly technologies designed and exported by these so-called peacemakers.
The earth itself, a fragile blue dot in the vastness of the universe, sustains life only because of rare, delicate conditions that allow us to exist. Yet, in the race for military dominance and profit, humanity edges closer to undermining the very survival of this planet. Every year, advances in weapons technology push us further toward the precipice, while diplomacy and cooperation take a back seat to greed and power politics. If we continue down this path, the destruction these nations sow abroad will inevitably circle back, consuming the prosperity and security they seek to protect.
It does not have to be this way. The trillions spent on creating weapons of mass destruction could instead be invested in eliminating poverty, improving education, expanding healthcare, and combating climate change. Innovation and technology can uplift humanity rather than destroy it. But this requires leadership—true leadership—not the hypocrisy of nations that preach peace while building instruments of death. It requires recognizing that peace cannot be manufactured by fueling conflict, that real security lies not in amassing weapons, but in building trust, cooperation, and fairness among nations.
The nations that pride themselves on being the architects of a just and peaceful global order must confront the uncomfortable truth: as long as their economies depend on producing tools of destruction, genuine peace will remain out of reach. The business of war has made the world less safe, less fair, and less hopeful. And unless humanity takes a collective stand to break this cycle, we may find ourselves on a path from which there is no return.
This is the lesson history has taught us time and again, yet we forget it with dangerous consistency. If the powers that dominate today do not change course, they too will face the same destruction they unleash upon others. It is time to choose a different path—one that values life over profit, compassion over greed, and cooperation over conflict. The survival of humanity depends on our willingness to dismantle the engines of destruction we have built and embrace the possibility of creating a world where peace is more than a slogan; it is a reality.
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