Update at 17:15 EST: This article has been updated to include expert comment.

In the first three months after a sweeping UN ban on North Koreans earning money overseas took effect in late December, nearly seven thousand DPRK nationals entered Russia — including 753 with work visas — according to new Russian government data published this week.

The new numbers, released in publicly available documents from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, appear to show that despite the UN’s DPRK worker ban, and even while Pyongyang was reportedly shutting down its borders to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from