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The ROK Navy's 1st Fleet Command conducts a joint port defense drill involving government, military, and police forces at Donghae Port, Gangwon Province on the 18th, as part of the "2026 Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise." A Navy military police quick-reaction team, the Army's 23rd Security Brigade, and Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries personnel maintain all-around surveillance in preparation for potential maritime infiltration. / Yonhap

North Korea, on the 19th, issued a fierce threat, warning that "adversaries will always remain within the range of our precisely targeted, annihilating retaliation," even as U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered a reduction to the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise.

North Korea's state news agency KCNA said in a commentary that day, addressing the UFS exercise in detail, that the joint military exercise — persistently continued for decades regardless of political changes in the U.S. and South Korea — can never be dismissed simply as a habitual military practice by hostile states, and that North Korea will never grow accustomed to it.

KCNA specifically cited remarks by UN Command Deputy Commander Scott Winter at a press conference earlier this month, in which he said the UN Command would cooperate in defending South Korea, claiming this confirmed as fact the actual deployment of the largest multinational invasion force in history, operating under the guise of the UN Command in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.

It added that the U.S.-led UN Command, which had previously played a supporting role in UFS exercises, is now using this exercise as an opportunity to tout "contributions in new domains such as intelligence, cyber, and space," moving in earnest to revive its combat functions and expand its role.

KCNA said, "Our exercise of the right to self-defense, aimed at thoroughly neutralizing the enemy's military threats, will be expressed through even clearer action," adding that "threatening actions must be met with new, evolved strength." This is interpreted as an effort to build justification for North Korea's push to strengthen and modernize its nuclear and conventional forces, as well as for potential future military provocations.

The commentary made no direct reference to either Trump's order to scale back UFS or President Lee Jae-myung's proposal for multilateral talks to formally end the war.

                                                                                                            Mok Yong-jae