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Experts: Russia Skirts Sanctions on N. Korean Workers to Defy US-led Pressure

Christy Lee

   Russia has been dodging U.N. sanctions and hiring North Korean workers
   to push back against the U.S.-led maximum-pressure policy, while
   supplementing the shrinking labor supply in its Far East, experts say.

   "Russia and, to a certain extent, China do not want to completely
   follow the U.S. sanctions lead," said Ken Gause, director of the
   Adversary Analytics Program atresearch group CNA.

   "That allows North Korea to continue to bring in resources and funding
   into the regime, which maintains stability inside the regime but also
   makes it very difficult for the U.S. to pursue its maximum-pressure
   strategy," Gausesaid.

   North Korean workers employed overseas see little of their wages, most
   of which provide Pyongyang with much-needed hard currency.

   Most North Korean workerswhomMoscow employs work on construction
   projects or in the logging, agriculture and textile industries, and
   they are usually sent to Russia's Far East in North
   Asia,saidTroyStangarone, senior director of the Korea Economic
   Institute.

   "Russia faces a shortage of workers in its Far East and a declining
   population,"Stangarone said, "so the workers provide Russia needed
   labor at cheap costs."

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