Seoul, Aug 2026 : Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Thursday criticised the decision by the United States and South Korea to scale down their ongoing Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) military exercise, accusing Seoul of being forced to abandon what she described as its preferred “war games”.
Kim made the remarks in a statement as the annual summertime joint military exercise continued with reduced participation and scope following an order by US President Donald Trump to scale down the drills, Yonhap News Agency reported.
“Trump issued a sudden order to reduce the scale of the drill. This has placed Seoul in a poor plight of cancelling ‘war games’ it liked very much,” Kim said.
She also criticised South Korean President Lee Jae Myung over what she called his “double-dealing remarks” regarding the exercise. Kim was referring to Lee’s statement that he respected the decision to reduce the scale of the drills while simultaneously stressing the need for South Korea to independently strengthen its military capabilities.
Kim described the scaling down of the exercise as an unprecedented development in the history of US-South Korea joint military drills. She said the exercises had never previously been reduced so substantially after their commencement without prior consultations.
“It will be something like the first ‘trouble’ to the ROK,” Kim said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.
She described the reduced exercise as an “evident disaster” for South Korean authorities, accusing them of having been blinded by what she called an excessive belief in US security support.
Kim also warned that American security assistance should not be assumed to be unconditional.
“The world witnesses that the US security aids are no longer free of charge,” she said, adding that South Korea's territory would not be enough to satisfy what she called its “cruel master”.
Her comments came on the same day that North Korea launched a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles towards the East Sea, adding to tensions surrounding the military exercise.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected approximately a dozen short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Pyongyang area at around 5 pm. The military said further analysis of the launches was underway in coordination with the United States.
The JCS said South Korean forces had strengthened surveillance and maintained heightened vigilance against the possibility of additional missile launches. Seoul was also sharing information with Washington and Tokyo while maintaining a high level of military readiness.
“Under a staunch South Korea-US combined defence posture, our military is closely monitoring various North Korean activities as we maintain the capability and readiness to overwhelmingly respond to any provocation,” the JCS said.
The latest developments come amid continued tensions on the Korean Peninsula, where annual US-South Korea military exercises remain a major source of friction with Pyongyang. North Korea has consistently condemned the drills as preparations for invasion, while Seoul and Washington maintain that the exercises are defensive in nature and necessary to preserve their combined readiness.
The missile launches and Kim Yo-jong's latest criticism are expected to further complicate efforts to ease tensions and improve security conditions on the peninsula.
