China and North Korea are gradually tightening their grip on Russia’s Far East, effectively turning vast eastern regions into zones of foreign economic control, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service on October 16.
The agency said Moscow is increasingly “paying” its wartime allies with its own territory as it struggles to sustain the war against Ukraine.
China’s economic footprint in the region continues to expand. Forecasts suggest Chinese investments in the Russian Far East could reach 1 trillion rubles ($12.6 billion) in 2025, though most deals remain limited to trade rather than infrastructure development.
Senator Viktor Kalashnikov from the Khabarovsk Territory reported that Russo-Chinese trade grew by 5.5 million tons in 2024 and surged another 36 percent in the first half of 2025.
At the same time, Beijing is advancing what Ukrainian intelligence calls a “creeping demographic expansion.”
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Up to two million Chinese citizens now live between Vladivostok and the Urals—a number that keeps rising thanks to preferential economic zones and visa-free travel. Some enclaves have already formed where “Russians hardly work at all,” the agency noted.
Parallel to China’s growing dominance, North Korea has become a key labor supplier for Moscow. Over the past year, more than 15,000 North Korean workers officially arrived in the Russian Far East, with unofficial estimates reaching 50,000.
Russian firms have already requested an additional 153,000 labor contracts. Pyongyang reportedly earns as much as $500 million annually from this arrangement, while workers receive minimal pay.
The report describes a troubling dynamic: two nuclear powers simultaneously strengthening their positions within Russia’s borders. China is building economic dependency, while North Korea exerts control through labor supply—each solving domestic challenges at Russia’s expense.
If the current trajectory continues, Ukrainian intelligence warns, competition between Beijing and Pyongyang could eventually spark a conflict of interests.
The Kremlin, it adds, risks losing control over nearly 40 percent of its own territory—about 7 million square kilometers with a population of 7.9 million—effectively turning the Far East into a battleground for foreign ambitions.
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“Russia is increasingly ‘paying’ its allies in the war against Ukraine with its own territories. Lacking the resources to develop its largest region—the Far Eastern Federal District—Moscow is opening the door to external expansion,” the agency stated.
Earlier, a senior NATO official said that China remains a linchpin in sustaining Russia’s defense industry—a relationship NATO says has become a decisive factor enabling Moscow to wage the war in Ukraine.
According to the official, roughly 80% of the critical electronic components used in Russian drones and other modern systems are manufactured in China. He also said Beijing has supplied Russia with more than $20 billion in production tools, components, and consumables since 2023—shipments that, in NATO’s assessment, have materially expanded Moscow’s ability to produce tanks, armored vehicles, and missiles.
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