North Korea is sending increasing numbers of workers to Russia’s premier drone factory located at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. Alabuga is located in the Yelabuzhsky District of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. Geran drones (Geran 1, Geran 2, Geran 3 and Geran 5) are produced at the Yelabuga Drone Factory. There is strong speculation that North Korea will soon get Russian drones, impacting the balance of forces on the Korean peninsula. No one yet knows whether the drones will be sold by Russia to North Korea, or if North Korea will acquire production technology from Russia.
Surely the Russians know that North Korean workers do more than solder parts together. Among them are well trained spies.
The Yelabuga drone factory comprises interconnected manufacturing buildings, testing structures, security perimeters, and specialized storage magazines—spans over 2.8 million square meters. The facility originally started in 2023 by assembling knock-down kits imported from Iran. It has since transitioned into an indigenous manufacturing pipeline producing entire airframes, engines, and internal electronics locally. The factory operates 24 hours a day and produces thousands of long-range attack drones per month (with independent estimates pointing to production capacities reaching or exceeding 5,500 units monthly.) The factory today has close to 40,000 workers. Of these, 12,000 to 25,000 workers (many of them women) are from North Korea.
The workers from North Korea are sent to Russia on student visas, a workaround as UN sanctions do not allow the transfer of North Korean workers to Russia (or China), or to other countries. However, the sanctions do not apply to students. Student visas for Russia are laundered in Moscow.
While North Korea sends more workers to China than Russia, the Chinese have kept North Korea workers away from the defense sector and have run heavy surveillance on North Koreans working in IT (information technology) in China. In at least one publicized case, China arrested a North Korean IT worker, accusing him of espionage.
Russia is operating on a war manufacturing footing, but is short of factory line workers. According to the Carnegie Endowment, estimates of Russia’s overall worker shortage range between 1.5 million and 2.6 million unfilled positions, with unemployment hovering at historic lows of around 2%. The Ukraine war has drained Russian industry of a significant part of its workforce. Workers recruited into the armed forces (either by conscription or under contract), plus the high number of soldiers either killed or wounded, has exacerbated the employment situation, compounded by thousands of young people who fled the country in 2022 to avoid serving in the army.
The Geran 2 drone was, until just recently, the most important one way attack drone in the Russian arsenal. They are used heavily in mixed swarm attacks in the Ukraine war. This past March a Geran 2 was shot down by the UAE, demonstrating that Russia was secretly supplying Geran drones to Iran. The latest iteration in the Geran-series is the Geran 5. This drone uses a turbojet engine and travels at 600 km per hour (373 mph), rendering the drone immune to slower Ukrainian interceptor drones (such as the Wild Hornets Sting or the Alexa Spatium). Geran 5 carries a 90 kg warhead (Geran 2 around 50 kg) and is semi autonomous. Reportedly the engine is Chinese (TeleflyTF-TJ2000A). In Ukraine the new drone means that expensive air defense missiles such as Patriot interceptors are needed to destroy incoming Geran 5 drones. The appearance of the Geran 5 has exposed critical Ukrainian assets, including within Kiev, to Russian drone strikes.
There is growing speculation that if Russia proliferates Geran 5 products or technology it could be a game changer unless the US and NATO develop cost effective countermeasures.
Any transfer of Geran 5 technology would negatively impact South Korean security and potentially shift the balance of power on the peninsula. The Russian military blog Rybar lays out the threat as follows: “On the territory of North Korea’s Asian neighbors, important American bases are concentrated. For example, Camp Humphreys serves as the headquarters of US forces in South Korea, and US Air Force assets are concentrated at airbases Osan and Kunsan, while the naval facility in Sasebo could also be hit. Military installations of Japanese and South Korean forces will also be tempting targets for ‘Geraniums’ (Gerans).” Rybar also points out that “100 kilometers from the demilitarized zone lies the world’s largest cluster of Samsung factories — the company ranks second only to Taiwan’s TSMC in chip production. If a strike disrupts operations at these facilities, it would hurt not only South Korea’s budget but the global technology industry as well. …[If] Pyongyang decides to halt South Korea’s economy altogether, they would pull out a map showing oil refineries and energy facilities like power plants. Since the southern neighbor depends on energy imports and relies on exporting its goods due to its economic structure, major ports could well become the next targets. The same applies to Japan. In the country, within the strike radius of “Geraniums,” there are several large fuel storage facilities and refineries, as well as port installations — just one port, Nagoya, handles one of the world’s largest cargo flows. Factories of Toyota, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and technology companies could also come under fire.”
While Rybar does not discuss Iran, given prior two way Geran (and Shahed) transfers, Iran can also produce Geran 5 drones if Russia allows technology transfer. Just as the Geran 5 is causing nightmares in Ukraine, the Geran 5 drone in Iranian (or Houthi or Hezbollah) hands will challenge the US and its regional allies. Relying on ultra-expensive interceptor systems (Patriot, NASAMS, Aegis) is unaffordable and will always be constrained by numbers.
As recent reports make clear, Russia has provided extensive support to Iran in its war with the US and Israel, especially sophisticated targeting information to help Iran hit US bases in the Gulf region causing significant destruction including heavy American casualties (750-800 or more wounded, 20 or more killed). Damage to US bases has led to serious consideration by Washington of pulling its bases out of the Gulf region.
While the US, NATO and South Korea are ramping up air defenses and trying to produce more Patriots, alternative and cost-effective solutions are badly needed. Can they be developed and deployed soon enough to matter?
