evidence: Mirroring the current crisis, one of the contributing factors was a lack of oil-based products in the agricultural sector after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, life for many North Koreans outside the capital of Pyongyang has remained an impoverished and isolated existence. Even without a full oil ban, some experts say these people have suffered the most from the sanctions already imposed this year. [...] "The poorest people that you don't see in Pyongyang, and everyone outside the city, would be short of heating oil this winter. And the reverberations in national agriculture come spring, summer could be devastating."