US and allies conduct air exercises in response to North Korea's ICBM test

The armed forces of the United States and South Korea demonstrated their air power after the North fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile.

The launch of the Hwasong-19 solid-fuel rocket under the supervision of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was the latest in the numerous missile tests carried out by the nuclear regime in defiance of UN Security Council sanctions.

The Japanese Defense Ministry tracked the ICBM as it flew northeast for 86 minutes, the longest duration ever for a North Korean missile, before it landed in the Sea of ​​Japan. The incident was condemned by Japan, South Korea and the United States. The latter called on Pyongyang to refrain from “further unlawful and destabilizing actions.”

Newsweek contacted the North Korean embassy in China via email and asked for a response.

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a news release that the drills focused on countering nuclear and ballistic missile threats from Pyongyang. The allies have “demonstrated their combined ability to overwhelm the enemy,” the statement continued.

The more than 110 participating aircraft conducted a series of mock combat missions and precision bombing exercises over the Yellow Sea, known in Korea as the West Sea, “in response to North Korea's long-range ballistic missile launches.”

The U.S. contributed F-35As, F-16s and Marine Corps MQ-9 Reaper drones, while South Korea deployed F-35Bs, F-15Ks and KF-16s, a domestically improved version of the original Fighting Falcon.

Seoul is working closely with its US ally to monitor security developments on the Korean peninsula and pledges to “always maintain the ability and willingness to overwhelmingly punish provocations by North Korea,” the statement concluded.

In a video shared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with local media, a Korean F-15 detonates a GBU-12 guided bomb. Its target was intended to replicate a North Korean transport erector launch vehicle, such as was apparently used to launch the ICBM.

In a statement to North Korean foreign broadcaster Voice of Korea, Kim stressed the need to strengthen the country's nuclear forces, citing the rivals' “dangerous tightening of their nuclear alliance and various adventurous military maneuvers” – an apparent reference to the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea and the Allies' frequent war games simulating a conflict with the North.

Kim said the “security situation” required Pyongyang to further expand its “modern strategic forces” and vowed to never stop “strengthening its nuclear forces,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.

The launch came just hours after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met his South Korean counterpart Kim Yong-hyun in Washington. In the press conference that followed, Kim described the North's missile and nuclear programs as an “existential threat” not only to Seoul but to the entire region.

Austin reiterated the U.S. commitment to defending Seoul in line with the policy of extended deterrence and promised that a nuclear attack by the North would end in the destruction of the Kim regime.

Inter-Korean tensions, already at their highest level in decades, worsened after thousands of North Korean troops were deployed to Russia. U.S. officials said about 8,000 were already in the Kursk border region, where Russian forces have been struggling since August to contain a Ukrainian counteroffensive.