North Korea Fires Over 10 Ballistic Missiles as US-South Korea Drills Wind Down

North Korea fired more than ten short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area on Thursday, sending them roughly 300 kilometers toward the sea off the peninsula's east coast, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The launches came just as the US and South Korea were wrapping up a shortened version of their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which President Donald Trump had ordered scaled back earlier this month.

South Korea's presidential office quickly convened an emergency security meeting with defence ministry and military officials following the launches. In a statement, Seoul called the missile fire "a grave act that violates UN Security Council resolutions" and demanded that Pyongyang immediately halt further tests.

Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers the projectiles are believed to be 600mm multiple rocket launcher rounds, a system North Korea has previously said can carry tactical nuclear warheads. Ahn added that Seoul is monitoring the weapons closely because they could eventually be deployed near the inter-Korean border, and separately estimated that North Korea currently holds between 80 and 120 nuclear warheads.

The drills, an 11-day routine that Pyongyang has long denounced as a rehearsal for invasion, were cut short after Trump said he wanted to revive personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and framed the reduction as both a goodwill gesture and a cost-saving move. Trump said earlier this week that he had received a response from Kim, though the North's response on the ground came in the form of missiles rather than talks.

Hours after the launches, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, dismissed Trump's overture, calling the drill reduction "an evident disaster" stemming from what she described as Seoul's outdated security thinking and its "master-and-servant" relationship with Washington. She said she was unaware of any recent contact between the two leaders and insisted Washington's underlying hostile policy toward Pyongyang remained unchanged.

The episode also drew reactions from Moscow and Beijing. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia "can only welcome" the US decision to trim the joint exercises, while Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on a visit to Seoul this week, urged South Korea not to take sides between China and the United States and called on Washington to abandon what he described as a hostile policy toward Pyongyang.

The missile launches underscore the volatility surrounding Trump's outreach to Kim, which has unsettled allies in the region even as it stalls amid the broader turbulence of ongoing tensions over Iran. Analysts say Pyongyang's continued weapons tests suggest it is in no rush to return to negotiations despite Washington's gestures.