North Korean citizens received 36,413 visas to Russia in 2025, nearly four times more than the year before, when 9,239 were issued, the newspaper Vedomosti reported, citing data from the consular department of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
Officially, the overwhelming majority of the visas — 35,849 of them — were issued for educational purposes. In 2024, that figure was 8,616. Other categories included 266 humanitarian visas, 72 tourist visas, 47 business visas, six private visas and 33 service visas.
At the same time, the data on actual entries differs sharply from the visa statistics. According to Rosstat, which bases its figures on information from the FSB border service, only 295 border crossings by North Korean citizens were recorded in the first quarter of 2025.
The sharp rise in the number of “educational” visas may be linked to the use of study programs as a means of bringing migrant laborers into Russia. The Insider previously found that thousands of North Korean citizens enter Russia on student visas but are in fact employed on construction sites and at industrial enterprises.
According to our investigation, the arrangement makes it possible to circumvent UN sanctions banning the hiring of North Korean workers: formally, they are classified as students undergoing “practical training,” but in reality they work full-time.
Russian authorities have repeatedly spoken about using North Korean citizens for work inside the country. In June 2025, ex-Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said North Korea would send about 6,000 of its citizens to help rebuild Russia’s Kursk Region following a lengthy incursion by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with 1,000 deminers and 5,000 military builders enlisted for the task.
According to South Korean intelligence, about 15,000 labor migrants from North Korea were already in Russia by May 2025, and a significant share of them work in the Russian Far East.
A UN Security Council resolution adopted in 2017 prohibits countries from hiring North Korean citizens and requires them to repatriate workers already abroad. The restrictions were imposed due to the fact that a significant share of North Korean laborers’ earnings is transferred to the state and used to finance military programs.
