Kim Jong-un supervised this past Monday, April 22, a “nuclear counterattack” drill which included the launch of several projectiles fired by large-caliber multiple rocket launchers and which seeks to respond to maneuvers being carried out these days by Seoul and Washington, as reported by North Korean state media.

It is the first time that the North Korean Army carries out an exercise “under the combined nuclear weapons management system”, which has been named “Haekbangasoe” (“Nuclear Trigger”)according to the state agency KCNA.

The goal of the drill was “to demonstrate the reliability, superiority, power and various means of the nuclear forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the official name of the country) and to strengthen them in quality and quantity,” the text indicates.

The exercises are “a clear warning signal to the enemy, as they were carried out at a time when the enemies’ military rampage against the DPRK is being carried out in an extremely provocative and aggressive nature.” In that sense, Pyongyang condemns combined air maneuvers that Seoul and Washington have been carrying out since April 12 around the South Korean town of Gunsan (west coast) with the participation of more than a hundred aircraft.

The salvo of projectiles fired (at least four, according to KCNA photos) during this “nuclear counterattack” drill would correspond to the launch detected the day before by the South Korean and Japanese armies. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detected the launch of several short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Pyongyang area towards the Sea of ​​Japan (called the East Sea in both Koreas) and detailed that the projectiles fell into the water after traveling around 300 kilometers.

During the exercise, participating units rehearsed the activation of the nuclear counterattack posture once “the largest nuclear crisis alarm in the State” was activated and the use of large-caliber multiple rocket launchers – a system that experts call KN-25 – to fire projectiles “equipped with simulated nuclear warheads” that, according to KCNA, “precisely hit” the simulated target after flying 352 kilometers.

Kim Jong-un supervised the drill, carried out on the plot of one of his residences northeast of Pyongyang, along with two members of the regime who usually accompany him in important weapons tests; the vice director of the Munitions Industry Department, Kim Jong-sik, and the general director of the General Directorate of Missiles, Jang Chang-ha.