Russia has been giving work permits to North Korean labourers despite a United Nations ban on the practice, which funds Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

On September 11, the UN forbid countries from authorising new employment contracts for North Koreans as part of sanctions meant to starve the Kim Jong-un regime of money following a string of nuclear blasts and missile tests last year.

But documents seen by The Telegraph indicated that Russia has continued to approve work permits for North Koreans months after the UN ban.

A decree on foreign workers posted by the labour ministry on December 6 approved positions for hundreds of North Koreans, mostly manual labour jobs like painter, bricklayer, carpenter or mechanic.

The list gave companies permission to hire 1,237 North Koreans just in the Amur region near Russia's border with the Hermit Kingdom.

Russia has approved more jobs for North Koreans this year, according to a report on Thursday by the Washington-based think tank Centre for Advanced Defence Studies.

While Pyongyang is cut off from the international financial system, it is able to make up to $2.3 billion in hard currency a year by sending some 100,000 or more workers abroad, according to estimates. Up to 80 per cent of them go to China and Russia, where they are employed in what the UN has called “slave-like conditions” and give up to 90 per cent of their wages to Kim Jong-un's regime.