North Korea says a live-fire drill it ran over the weekend, combining missiles, artillery and drones, showed off what it called “huge destructive power.” The claim came Monday from state media, and it’s a direct answer to President Trump’s recent attempt to ease tensions on the peninsula.
South Korea’s military detected short-range ballistic missile launches Saturday morning from North Korea’s Wonsan area on the eastern coast. According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, several of the missiles flew roughly 155 miles toward North Korea’s eastern waters — a range that would put South Korean territory and US military bases within reach.
State outlet KCNA said the exercise was designed to test an integrated weapons control system, firing multiple weapons types at once. That’s widely read as an attempt to build the capability to saturate and overwhelm South Korean and US air defenses.
North Korean Marshal Pak Jong Chon, who observed the drill, said it would “improve the level of specialization to bring down the enemy’s armed forces organizationally and structurally once an order is issued.” He said the weapons on display showed “the huge destructive power of concentrated fire,” per KCNA.
None of North Korea’s claims about its own weapons tests can be independently verified.
Trump’s Concession Didn’t Buy Restraint
Last month, Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, a major joint drill with South Korea, pointing to what he described as a good relationship with Kim Jong Un. The exercise ultimately wrapped up six days ahead of its original schedule.
North Korea didn’t take the bait. Pyongyang said shortening the drill changed nothing about its “provocative, aggressive nature.”
Saturday’s launches were North Korea’s first public ballistic missile tests in about three weeks, and they came just one day after the US, South Korea and Japan finished a trilateral military exercise that Pyongyang considers a provocation in its own right.
Analysts say Kim is not backing off his testing schedule regardless of Washington’s overtures. With an expanding nuclear arsenal and closer ties to Russia and China, Kim is believed to view himself as holding more leverage now than during his first round of talks with Trump in 2018 and 2019.
Kim has said he’d consider returning to negotiations only if the US drops what he calls its “hostile policy” toward North Korea and accepts the North’s status as a nuclear-armed state.
