Russia evacuated North Korean diplomats from Syria on Sunday amid fallout from the fall of the Assad regime, according to Moscow, throwing the DPRK’s future operations in the Middle Eastern country into question.

A Russian foreign ministry press release stated that a special flight by the Russian Aerospace Forces transported “some of the personnel of Russian foreign missions in Damascus to Moscow’s Chkalovsky Airport.”

“Employees of the diplomatic missions of Belarus, the DPRK, and Abkhazia were also evacuated.”

The notice did not mention if any North Koreans stayed behind or if the entire staff of the DPRK mission left the