South Korean military fires waring shots

• Five North Korean drones entered South Korean airspace on Monday.
• South Korean fighter jets and helicopters repelled the attackers.
• Kim Jong Un’s nuclear forces are ready for “real battle.”

Five North Korean drones entered South Korean airspace on Monday, causing the military to send out fighter jets and assault helicopters, according to the South Korean defense ministry.

Though it noted that it couldn’t confirm whether any drones were downed, the ministry said that South Korea’s military had fired shots at the flying objects.

Four of the drones, according to Lee Seung-oh, a South Korean defense official, circled Ganghwa island, and one flew above the northern airspace of Seoul.

“This is a clear provocation and an invasion of our airspace by North Korea,” Lee said during a briefing. In response to the airspace violation, Lee said, the South Korean military sent its manned and unmanned reconnaissance assets to the inter-Korean border region, with some of them crossing into the North Korean territory.

In addition to recording North Korea’s military facilities, the assets carried out a reconnaissance mission, according to Lee.

According to the defense ministry of South Korea, the drones were initially spotted by the military in the area of Gimpo in the northwest at about 10:25 local time on Monday.

It claimed to have fired the Hwasong-17 ICBM, a “new type” of missile that could theoretically reach the continental United States, from Pyongyang International Airfield in November.

Additionally, Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the regime and the sister of Kim Jong Un, stated in state media last week that North Korea was prepared to test-fire an ICBM at a normal trajectory, a flight pattern that might demonstrate the weapons’ ability to target the continental United States.

Experts from the US and South Korea have cautioned that Pyongyang may be getting ready for its first nuclear test in more than five years.

Since the third of three meetings between Kim Jong Un and then-US President Donald Trump in 2019 failed to produce a deal, North Korea has been stepping up its actions in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions by developing its nuclear missile weapons.

Kim issued a warning in October that his nuclear forces are completely ready for “actual battle.”

“Our nuclear combat forces… proved again their full preparedness for actual war to bring the enemies under their control,” Kim said in comments reported by the North’s state-run News Agency.

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