Kim Young Bok, the First Vice Chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, lambasted the deployment of U.S. stealth fighters, including F-35s, to the Korean Peninsula during the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercises. He described it as shameless warmongering logic akin to highway robbery.
The official newspaper of the Workers’ Party, Rodong Sinmun, published Kim’s statement on Tuesday. It underscored that the U.S.-led joint military exercises, known as UFS, are destabilizing the regional security environment as they take place near North Korea’s borders.
Kim dismissed the characterization by U.S. Forces Korea—that the exercises are routine and defensive training with no preemptive strikes or offensive operations, but rather measures to enhance deterrence—as absurd sophistry.
He emphasized that it is a universally acknowledged fact that a large-scale war exercise conducted by the world’s largest nuclear power, in collusion with over ten allied nations against a single country in a region legally at war, cannot possibly be deemed defensive.
Kim specifically noted the deployment of more than ten F-35 stealth fighters to U.S. bases in South Korea and the ongoing day-and-night operational training by stealth aircraft from Japan at the U.S. base in Gunsan. He asserted that this joint military exercise is intensifying its provocative nature, surpassing all previous anti-North Korea war demonstrations in terms of character, scale, and execution.
He further argued that the demonstration of new combined operational plans—including strategies to expand attacks on North Korean territory following a preemptive strike on its nuclear facilities—clearly indicates an intent for war against North Korea. Kim added that the fact that nuclear preemptive strikes targeting the Republic have become an indispensable fixed item in long-standing U.S.-South Korea military exercises clearly identifies who threatens humanity with nuclear weapons and who is the main culprit in destroying peace.
Kim warned that they are monitoring everything and are prepared to respond to any situation. Further noting that if the U.S. and South Korea persist in this display of military might, they will undoubtedly face unpleasant consequences and pay a price.
Kim is among the generals who led North Korean troops deployed to Russia last October. Unlike previous years, when North Korea responded to U.S.-South Korea joint exercises with military provocations, this year they have opted for responses through statements and communications.
Earlier, U.S. Air Force F-35As arrived in South Korea last week and are participating in aerial training during the ongoing joint exercises.