In remarks reported Thursday from an event Wednesday marking the anniversary of the end of the 1953 Korean War, Kim threatened to “wipe out” South Korean forces with nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict. “Our armed forces are fully prepared to respond to any crisis, and our country’s nuclear deterrent war is also ready to mobilize its ultimate power responsibly, precisely and quickly according to its mission,” Kim said. “It is an act of suicide, and absurd and extremely dangerous, to talk about military action against our country when in fact we already have the most powerful weapon that you fear the most.” Joint US-South Korean military drills next month will be the first large-scale drills since 2018, when they were scaled back ahead of the summit between Kim and then-US President Donald Trump. As of 2019, the exercises have been limited to computer simulation command refresher training. This year’s drills, to be held in late August and early September, will include joint carrier strike exercises and take-off and landing training. A spokesman for South Korea’s defense ministry told reporters that Kim’s speech was “nothing new.” “It’s an ongoing situation where North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats have increased,” the spokesman said. “We’re responding to that.” Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s conservative president, has pledged to “normalize” joint exercises with the US to boost deterrence against the North, which has conducted at least 28 ballistic missile tests in 2022 – the most in a single time. Pyongyang has also completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test, according to the US and South Korean governments. In his speech on Wednesday, Kim accused the US of “demonizing” Pyongyang’s “usual” military developments as “provocations”. He warned “military gangsters” in the South Korean government to stop broadcasting what he described as threats. North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Wednesday, describing joint US-South Korean drills as being conducted with a “thick smell of gunpowder”. He called the two countries “a horde of belligerents who want the wretchedness of war.” The ministry also warned that the summer’s joint exercises could “expand into the second Korean War.” The Korean War began in 1950 when Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, launched a devastating invasion of the South. But in its official propaganda, North Korea maintains that the war was caused by the US and South Korea.

In an editorial this week, North Korea’s state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun urged citizens to “always bear in mind the historical philosophy that the nature of the US imperialists and class enemies will never change, and you must unconditionally hate the imperialism”. “In the seven decades since North Korea invaded and failed to conquer South Korea, the Kim regime has become more isolated internationally and lost peace than the globally successful capitalist democracy of South Korea,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. . That’s why Kim Jong Un is using his ‘Victory Day’ speech to boost national pride in imagining that Pyongyang is winning a protracted struggle with its nuclear missiles.”