Russia’s Ambassador to North Korea said Moscow would ‘ignore’ sanctions from individual countries and unions when dealing with North Korea in an interview with the TASS News Agency published Friday.

During the interview, Ambassador Alexander Matsegora doubled down on previous comments made in November last year, where he said that only sanctions imposed by the UN were legitimate.

“In this regard, we do not recognize any additional restrictions against Pyongyang, which other individual states or unions adopt (i.e. the EU), consider them illegitimate and, therefore, ignore,” Matsegora said, while explaining that sanctions should not affect the “socio-economic situation” in North