Report: North Korean workers in Alabuga could strengthen Pyongyang’s drone program — Korea Herald

Workers from North Korea at a drone manufacturing facility in Alabuga, Russia, an aggressor state, could pass on to Pyongyang technical experience in the mass assembly of military drones. This is stated in a joint report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the George W. Bush Institute, Korea Herald reports.

Drone production experience

The study’s authors note that North Korean technical specialists assigned to the Alabuga complex could use, after returning to Pyongyang, knowledge gained on the mass drone assembly line. In particular, they could become familiar with Russian upgrades to Geran drones.

Geran is a Russian-made, Iranian-designed strike drone that Moscow widely uses in its war against Ukraine. The report states that a more sophisticated and larger-scale North Korean drone program could create a new military challenge for South Korea, Japan, and U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Estimates of the number of workers

According to a separate report by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, between 15,000 and 30,000 workers from North Korea were in Russia as of the end of 2025, some of whom were involved in the production of military drones. The document also claims that Moscow introduced a student visa scheme to disguise North Korean workers as students.

The study’s authors, Victor Cha and Joseph Kim, cited Ukrainian military intelligence estimates that up to 12,000 workers from North Korea could have been sent to the Alabuga complex. The report also states that the regime in Pyongyang retains between 70% and 90% of the earnings of its citizens abroad. According to an estimate by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, one North Korean worker in Russia generates average annual earnings of about $7,500.