North Korea Holds Missile and Artillery Drill

North Korea said Monday that its latest missile launches were part of a large-scale live-fire military exercise designed to test multiple weapons and strengthen its ability to conduct coordinated strikes, according to state media KCNA.

The drill, held Saturday, involved five North Korean army units and featured several weapons systems, including attack drones, tactical cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles and large-calibre multiple rocket launchers. KCNA described the exercise as a “joint firepower attack drill” involving long-range artillery and missile units.

According to KCNA, the exercise was intended to improve combat readiness and strengthen troops’ ability to carry out coordinated attacks when ordered. The report cited an artillery official who said the training would raise troop morale and enhance their capacity to overwhelm an adversary.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported Saturday that North Korea had launched several short-range ballistic missiles. The projectiles traveled roughly 250 kilometers (155 miles) before falling into waters off North Korea’s east coast.

The launches came one day after South Korea, the United States and Japan completed the five-day Freedom Edge exercise, a trilateral military drill aimed partly at strengthening their ability to respond to North Korean security threats.

Saturday’s activity is believed to have been North Korea’s 13th known ballistic missile launch event of 2026. KCNA reported on the exercise two days later, although North Korean state media had not publicly addressed several recent missile launches previously detected by South Korea.

Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said the exercise appeared to demonstrate an integrated strike network rather than the testing of a single weapon.

Lim said Pyongyang was showcasing its ability to coordinate drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and rocket artillery through a unified command-and-control structure.

The absence of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the delayed state-media coverage could indicate that Pyongyang wanted to frame the launches as a practical military exercise while managing regional tensions, Lim added.

He said the drill could also help North Korea gather operational data while developing tactics involving simultaneous attacks by weapons with different flight characteristics, potentially complicating South Korean and U.S. missile defenses.