SEOUL — South Korea and the United States will conduct their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise from Aug. 17 to 27, incorporating training on drones, GPS disruption and cyberattacks as the allies adapt to evolving threats from North Korea, officials said on Monday.
About 18,000 South Korean troops are expected to participate in the exercise, a similar scale to previous years, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. The drills will combine military training with exercises supporting the South Korean government's emergency-readiness preparations.
U.S. and South Korean officials said the exercise would reflect changes in modern warfare, including the growing use of unmanned systems, electronic warfare and cyber operations. Colonel Ryan Donald, public affairs director for the Combined Forces Command, United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea, said the training also takes into account North Korean military experience gained through its involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
“DPRK soldiers have deployed and fought in Ukraine, and they've taken those lessons they've learned there and brought them back to North Korea,” Donald said, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
“That changes the DPRK capability, and our training accounts for that threat,” he said.
Donald said the drills would focus strictly on threats to the Korean Peninsula and the defense of South Korea. The allies describe the annual exercise as defensive in nature.
North Korea has routinely condemned joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises as provocative. Tensions remain elevated as Pyongyang continues developing nuclear weapons, ballistic and cruise missiles, artillery and other military capabilities despite U.N. Security Council sanctions. North Korea also fired a short-range ballistic missile toward the sea last week, according to South Korean officials.
The exercise comes amid strained relations between the two Koreas. North Korea has hardened its position toward the South, including changes to its constitution that removed references to reunification and defined its territory as bordering South Korea, according to Reuters.
Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of the two major annual combined exercises conducted by the South Korean and U.S. militaries, with the other, Freedom Shield, held in March. The upcoming drills are scheduled to run through Aug. 27.
