North Korea will send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to support reconstruction work in Russia’s Kursk region, a top Russian official said 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, though Ukraine has insisted it still has troops present 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, according to Russia’s state news agency, Tass.
Another Russian state news agency, RIA Novosti, carried a similar report.
“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,” Shoigu said, according to RIA Novosti. “This is a kind of brotherly aid being sent by the Korean people and their leader, Kim Jong Un, to our country.”
Shoigu said that Moscow and Pyongyang agreed to erect memorials in both countries in honor of North Korean soldiers who died while fighting in the Kursk region, according to Tass and RIA Novosti.
Credit: NBCNEWS