One week after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly told officials to brace for hardship and referenced a deadly 1990s famine, a top Russian diplomat said that the country is experiencing a serious shortage of food and medicine but is not in a state of mass starvation.

In a recent interview with the state-run TASS Russian News Agency, Russian Ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matseogra called current conditions inside the DPRK “tough,” but reassured the public that “the main thing is that the country is not facing famine."