Seoul has announced it is ready to mirror Pyongyang’s provocations – Reuters

Spring in Korea, despite all its beauty and pleasant weather, is considered a very turbulent time in military and political terms. The reason for this is the regular US-South Korean military exercises, which, as a rule, are carried out on a large scale. This is generally much hated by Pyongyang, which sees it as preparations for an attack on itself.
Everything is exactly the same this time. Yesterday, representatives from the United States and the Republic of Korea announced that they would hold large-scale “Freedom Shield” maneuvers from March 13-23. They will involve tens of thousands of military personnel, a large amount of equipment, the arrival of a group of American aircraft carriers, strategic bombers and much more. The allies said that this year they intend to conduct fire, train in landing operations and rehearse defense and attack actions. In recent years, due to the approach of the government of the Republic of Korea (ROK), which has tried to develop cooperation and ties with Pyongyang, these exercises have been canceled under various pretexts. But since May last year, another side has been in power in Kazakhstan: the conservatives, who, to the undisguised joy of the United States, on the contrary, are determined to carry out exercises of a particular magnitude and to show Pyongyang the full strength of their alliance with Washington.Although representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the military contingent of US troops in Korea have called the upcoming Freedom Shield “defensive exercises”, offensive operations will also be fully practiced there, and Pyongyang is not one of them. so not satisfied. . The DPRK has previously described them as a “rehearsal for an invasion from the North”. Earlier, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, promised South Korea an unprecedented response to such power and force exercises.Apparently, South Korea decided not to “swallow” possible attacks from the DPRK, but rather to actively respond to them. South Korean media, citing sources from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan, reported that the country’s troops have increased their combat readiness, are closely monitoring the DPRK and are ready to respond to provocations from the northerners. In particular, it was explained that if the DPRK carried out large-scale fire with the help of artillery and MLRS in the region of the inter-Korean border, South Korea would react in exactly the same way.
Note that according to the inter-Korean agreements of September 19, 2018, Seoul and Pyongyang have agreed on measures aimed at reducing military tensions. Among them is a provision prohibiting military activities in the so-called “buffer zone” adjacent to the inter-Korean border. The South accuses the North that the latter has repeatedly violated the agreements by carrying out shootings in this area, and it really happened. True, the DPRK is responding to the fact that the resumption of exercises with the United States, to which Seoul went, also violates the spirit of the inter-Korean agreements, and therefore, according to the logic of the North, the southerners were the first to intensify.In any case, now we can expect that in the near future it will be “hot” in the area of ​​​​the inter-Korean border. One way or another, the DPRK will react to the US-South Korean exercises, especially since the maneuvers are now being conducted in such a way that they could potentially pose a threat to Pyongyang. The North fears that large American and South Korean forces will converge on the Korean peninsula and, if desired, all of this can easily be deployed against the DPRK. At the same time, the shootings in the border area seem perhaps a very soft reaction from Pyongyang, although Seoul has promised to respond to them immediately. There is a high probability that the DPRK will opt for the launch of ballistic missiles, including those that can reach the United States and, in the most acute scenario, another nuclear test. In Seoul, they pointed out that they had calculated all the scenarios and had a ready-made answer to each of them.