S. Korea, US shorten UFS exercise, scale back field drills

South Korea and the United States have agreed to shorten their ongoing Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, which began on Monday, to run through Friday. According to Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the allies also scaled back some combined field training exercises at the U.S. side's proposal.

The UFS exercise was initially scheduled to run for 11 days. North Korea denounced the joint military exercise, vowing to "completely neutralize the enemy's military threat" and exercise its right to self-defense, as reported by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korea's commentary, as per KCNA, criticized the exercise, claiming the joint drills had grown more sophisticated and increasingly geared toward actual combat. There was no mention of U.S. President Donald Trump's recent order to scale back the annual combined exercise in North Korea's commentary.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Korea Times, The Korea Times, Yonhap News — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.