North Korea test-fires 10 missiles as South Korea, U.S. stage war games

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea test-fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan Saturday, five days after South Korea and its U.S. allies kicked off their annual spring war games.

South Korean officials said they detected the launches at around 1:20 p.m.

“Our military maintains a firm readiness posture while closely sharing North Korean ballistic missile information with the U.S. and Japanese sides amid a heightened surveillance posture against additional launches,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs said, per Yonhap News Agency, in a template statement.

The missiles splashed in the Sea of Japan, east of the peninsula.

For tests of ballistic missiles, Pyongyang follows common global protocols, firing them on a west-east trajectory so the Earth’s rotation grants them extra boost.

Saturday’s missile shoot followed angry rhetoric aimed at the annual “Freedom Shield” drills by Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang insists that the exercises, which Washington calls “defensive in nature,” are actually practice for an invasion of the north.

Ms. Kim warned, in a statement in state media on Tuesday, the day following the drills’ commencement, that they could “lead to terrible consequences that are unimaginable.”

This spring, the U.S.-South Korea drills take place against the backdrop of an ongoing Israeli-U.S. aerial campaign against Iran.

Indo-Pacific-based U.S. assets — missile interceptors in South Korea and U.S. Marines in Okinawa — are currently redeploying to the Middle East, where Iran’s will to fight remains unbroken.

The redeployments have raised quiet concerns about the U.S. ability to fight a two-front war, and come at a time when a major power shift is underway in the defense of the Korean Peninsula.

The all-domain drills encompass both computer simulations and “Warrior Shield” field exercises. Some 18,000 troops are engaged, with training running through Thursday.

The Spring 2026 drills are being used to stress-test South Korea’s domestic capabilities, notably in sophisticated areas such as long-range strike, command and control, and intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance.

The assessments, made by the U.S. side, are part of the planned conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops from U.S. to South Korean command.

The Lee Jae-myung administration, which took office in summer 2025, has announced that it wants wartime “OPCON Transfer” to take place by the end of its term, 2030.

The Trump administration is pressuring allies worldwide to increase defense spending and upgrade capabilities. It has made clear it wants Seoul to take an increasing share of the conventional defense burden, while sheltering Korea under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.