North Korea warned on Friday it could respond with “a new level of deterrent” to upcoming joint US-South Korea drills simulating battle against Pyongyang’s troops battle-hardened from deployment in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The 11-day exercises due to begin on Monday are an annual fixture of the summer calendar, designed to prepare the United States and South Korea to defend against the nuclear-armed North.

Pyongyang regularly labels them rehearsals for an invasion and this week test-fired a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan, signalling its opposition to the exercises.

But this year’s drills are tailored to prepare soldiers to fight North Koreans with modern combat experience from the Russia-Ukraine theatre — including drone, cyber-attack and GPS jamming capabilities.

“The US announced that the forthcoming exercises are quite different from the ones of the past five years and intended to master the ability of fighting a war on the basis of the new aspects of modern warfare,” a spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“It is our consistent principle of ensuring security to respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent,” said the statement, published by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea has a long-standing reputation as one of the most cut-off nations in the world.

But since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 it has become a key ally to the Kremlin, sending troops for its faltering war in return for economic benefits and military technology support, analysts say.

This week, Ukraine accused Moscow of launching North Korean ballistic missiles in a raid which killed at least nine people and wounded dozens.

Kyiv has also recently said up to 50,000 North Korean troops are due for deployment in Russia, although it has provided no evidence to back the claim.

Lessons of war

Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesman for the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command, said this week that North Korea’s deployment to the European war had changed the threat his soldiers may face on the Korean peninsula.

“They’ve taken those lessons they learned there and brought them back to North Korea,” he told reporters.

“Our training accounts for that threat.”

Pyongyang’s foreign ministry statement said the US-South Korea drills are being staged “at a time when military and political situation is becoming more serious with each passing day in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world”.

The “Ulchi Freedom Shield” drills will include 18,000 South Korean troops and counterparts from the 28,500-strong US contingent in the country.

Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said that despite airing threats of escalation, the North Korean foreign ministry statement was notable for its comparably restrained tone.

“The content is not particularly provocative or inflammatory. It is quite matter-of-fact,” Hong told AFP, adding that Pyongyang may want to keep open the possibility of future engagement with Washington.

Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state since leader Kim Jong Un’s 2019 summit with US President Donald Trump collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief.

It has recently been bristling over Japan’s gradual military build-up in the Pacific — firing off two missiles in as many weeks after Tokyo pledged to up its defence capabilities with a “sense of urgency and crisis”.

But Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may seek a meeting with US President Donald Trump, potentially after the US midterm elections.