North Korean state media reported this Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised a “nuclear counterattack” drill on Monday which included the launch of several projectiles fired by large-caliber multiple rocket launchers and which seeks to respond to some maneuvers that Seoul and Washington are carrying out these days.
It is the first time that the North Korean Army has carried out an exercise “under the combined nuclear weapons management system”which has been baptized “Haekbangasoe” (“Nuclear Trigger”), according to the state agency KCNA.
The goal of the drill was “to demonstrate the reliability, superiority, power and various means of the nuclear forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the official name of the country) and to strengthen them in quality and quantity,” the text indicates.
The exercises represent “a clear warning signal for the enemy, since they were carried out at a time when military rampage of enemies against the DPRK “It is being carried out in an extremely provocative and aggressive manner.”
In that sense, Pyongyang condemns the combined air maneuvers that Seoul and Washington They have been taking place since April 12 around the South Korean town of Gunsan (west coast) with the participation of more than a hundred aircraft.
The salvo of projectiles fired (at least four, according to KCNA photos) during this “nuclear counterattack” drill would correspond to the launch detected the day before by the South Korean and Japanese armies.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detected the launch of several missiles short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Pyongyang area towards the Sea of ​​Japan (called the East Sea in both Koreas) and detailed that the projectiles fell into the water after traveling around 300 kilometers.
During the exercise, participating units rehearsed activating the nuclear counterattack posture once activated “the biggest nuclear crisis alarm in the State” and the use of large-caliber multiple rocket launchers – a system that experts call KN-25 – to fire projectiles “equipped with simulated nuclear warheads” that, according to KCNA“precisely hit” the simulated target after flying 352 kilometers.
Kim Jong-un supervised the drill, carried out on the plot of one of his residences northeast of Pyongyang, along with two members of the regime who usually accompany him in important weapons tests; the vice director of the Department of Munitions Industry, Kim Jong-sik, and the director general of the General Directorate of Missiles, Jang Chang-ha.
