North Korea Decries US Drills on Doorstep As Kim's Troops Join Ukraine War

North Korea over the weekend described a series of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills as "a grave provocation."

"Freedom Flag 24-1," which also includes elements from the Australian air force, began on October 21 and will run through November 1. According to a statement by the U.S. Seventh Air Force, which is headquartered in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, the aim is to boost the interoperability and readiness of participating air forces "with large-scale, integrated training on advanced, high-end tactics, techniques and procedures against an advanced adversary."

The wargames come amid U.S., Ukrainian and South Korean assessments that the North has deployed thousands of troops to Russia to assist its ally in the war against Ukraine, a move Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called an " obvious escalatory step ."

"The U.S. will be held wholly responsible for pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula to an uncontrollable one," North Korea 's foreign ministry said in an English-language statement carried Saturday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in China and the U.S. Department of Defense with emailed requests for a response.

The North Korean foreign ministry pointed out the aerial component of the exercise for the first time features a joint sortie between drones and fighter jets and an airborne refueling drill between an Australian tanker and a South Korean F-35 fighter jet.

"At the same time, it is further escalating the military tension while dispatching the super-large nuclear carrier George Washington task force around the Korean peninsula," the ministry added.

The ministry further noted that the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier the USS George Washington recently departed San Diego and is en route to Yokohama, Japan, where it will join the Seventh Fleet as the U.S.' only forward-deployed aircraft carrier.

The North Korean statement firmly denounced the ongoing allied drills, calling them a "clear threat and grave provocation" and a cover for the South's "illegal" demonstration of its "infiltrating military attack means into the sky above a sovereign state under the shelter of 'military cooperation' with someone."

Inter-Korean tensions, already at their highest in decades, have spiked further since the North Korean deployments. South Korean intelligence officials have said the troops, estimated to reach 12,000, will join Russian forces in their illegal war against Ukraine.

While Pyongyang initially dismissed these reports as baseless speculation, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jong Gyu on Friday issued a vaguely worded statement that allowed for the possibility. "If there is such a thing that the world media is talking about, I think it will be an act conforming with the regulations of international law," the KCNA quoted him as saying.

U.S. officials have said it remains uncertain what role the North Korean troops will play in the conflict, but National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday it was possible, "perhaps even likely," that some would end up in Russia's Kursk region, where Moscow's forces have been struggling to contain a surprise Ukrainian counter-offensive since August.