The New Russia-DPRK Economic Axis: Expansion of Tumangang and Khasan Railway Crossing

Key Findings

• The ongoing and high level of rail traffic and related activity observed at both the Tumangang and Khasan Rail Facilities, including the apparent resumption of limited passenger rail service after a five-year suspension, is a key indicator of the growing strategic military and economic relationship between North Korea and Russia. 
• North Korea has initiated a major modernization of the rail facilities at Tumangang in 2024, which recent satellite images confirm will significantly expand the facility’s capabilities when completed.
• Satellite imagery indicates additional changes observed over the past few weeks, including the development of the Khasan Rail Facility and the apparent beginning of road and bridge construction agreed by North Korea and Russia earlier this year.   

As outlined in our October 6, 2023, and August 8, 2024, reports on the Tumangang Rail Facility, the level of activity at this rail crossing with Russia was minimal prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. North Korea would receive small but periodic shipments of petroleum products and freight from Russia and ship coal to Russia via the crossing. Rail trade dropped to near zero during the pandemic.  

By 2022, however, satellite imagery indicated tentative efforts to resume rail trade between the two nations. In retrospect, these may have been early indications of the commercial benefits to come from the initial weapons trade between DPRK and Russia to support Putin’s war in Ukraine. Moreover, from these earlier imagery timestamps, we see a clear correlation between DPRK-Russia high-level diplomacy and the growth in commerce along the rail crossing. 

One of the initial efforts observed was that North Korea expanded and accelerated a long-term project begun in 2022 to replace existing creosote-impregnated wooded rail ties (a.k.a. sleepers) with concrete ties within the Tumangang Rail Facility. While the replacement of the rail ties was undoubtedly needed due to the age and lack of sufficient regular maintenance to the facility, the size and extent also suggest North Korea’s anticipation of both the resumption and a significant increase in rail traffic between the two nations.¹ This development was a few months prior to the revelation by the White House that the Tumangang-Khasan railroad crossing was involved in the transfer of North Korean munitions to Russia. This was during a time period when the crossing consistently showed significantly increased energy and economic trade.

In 2023, five days after the Kim-Putin summit held in September, satellite imagery indicated that a gradual but consistent increase in the number of rail cars present had begun at both North Korea’s Tumangang and Russia’s rail facilities. 

2024 saw a more dramatic increase in the volume and types of exchange between the two countries. On top of the consistent exchange of rail cars, the two countries appear to have resumed limited passenger rail service.²  This correlated with the increasing diplomatic exchanges between the two countries in 2024, including at least four high-level meetings between Foreign Ministers and Presidents. These engagements resulted in the Treaty of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and the sending of North Korean troops to Russia.³

Expansion and Modernization of the Crossing

North Korea initiated a major modernization project of the Tumangang rail facilities starting in February-March 2024, encompassing the razing and subsequent reconstruction of the rail station, shops, dining halls, and their associated buildings. Satellite images collected on December 3 and 15, 2024, show that this modernization program is ongoing.  

The rail facility’s upper railyard exhibits ongoing activity with the presence of passenger, gondola, and ore cars.⁴ The yard’s concrete sleeper factory continues to produce new sleepers, and a substantial number of supplies are seen waiting to be shipped.  

The most visually striking transformation is observed at the center of the rail facility, where the rail station, shops, dining halls, and their associated buildings have been demolished and are undergoing reconstruction. Notably, a 348-by-26-meter canopy is being constructed over the tracks in front of these facilities. While smaller than the 360-by-45-meter canopy at the Sinuiju Rail Facility, this canopy will not only provide cover from rain and snow but will conceal from overhead imagery activity taking place beneath it. Stacked and waiting to be installed concrete sleepers are observed adjacent and south of the rail station. 

At the locomotive servicing facility, located in the lower railyard, at least three diesel and diesel-electric locomotives are present, along with strings of ore, gondola, and tank cars. 

Across from the locomotive servicing facility and alongside the warehouse area, the previously observed passenger car converted to temporary housing for rail workers remains present. Adjacent to the warehouse area, strings of ore, intermodal, and freight cars are present on the facility’s platform.⁵

Southwest of the warehouse facility, at the railcar servicing facility, three tank cars are observed undergoing maintenance. This maintenance is likely related to the tank cars’ wheels (known in railroad terms as “trucks”) as there are numerous spare trucks seen along the facility’s servicing tracks. This facility has been observed as being active in most imagery during 2024, suggesting the increased heavy usage of numerous rail cars that have long been in need of routine inspection and maintenance. 

The petroleum products unloading facility located to the southwest of the warehouse facility continues to experience significant usage, indicating the ongoing delivery of petroleum products from Russia. At least seven tank cars are present in the December 3, 2024, image. 

East of the rail Tumangang Rail Facility and Korea-Russia Friendship bridge lies the presumed location for the new “motorcar bridge” agreed upon during the Kim-Putin summit in June 2024.⁶ Despite the absence of activity on the Russian shore of the Tumangang River, in November 2024, North Korean workers built a new dirt road to what is believed to be the construction site for the bridge. 

Khasan Rail Facility

Accompanying the increasing activity at the Tumangang Rail Facility, activity at Russia’s Khasan railroad facility increased. This activity continues to exhibit a similar pattern seen through the majority of 2024, as is evident by the presence of approximately 225 rail cars in a December 3, 2024, satellite image. Many of the rail cars are ore cars, and a lesser number of tank and freight cars.  

Notably, the rail-served warehouse facility located on the east side of the Khasan facility, which has been abandoned and derelict since at least 2002, was razed in late October and early November 2024. The reason for this is unclear. It may be related to a planned further increase in the size and nature of the North Korea-Russia rail trade or an early indication of preparations for constructing the planned road bridge across the Tumangang.