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North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun released this photo along with an article on April 23, 2024, which said that Kim Jong-un had overseen a simulated nuclear counterattack using 600 MM super-large multiple rocket sub-units in a drill of its “Nuclear Trigger” nuclear weapon combined management system on April 22. (KCNA/Yonhap)

According to the Tuesday edition of North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun, leader Kim Jong-un guided tactical training exercises that simulated a nuclear counterattack. The exercise reportedly included units assigned to Pyongyang’s 600 mm multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). 

Kim led a salvo missile launch to test the country's “Nuclear Trigger” system, which North Korea describes as its “national nuclear weapon comprehensive control system.” 

The Rodong Sinmun reported that North Korea had issued its “Volcano Alarm,” or “the state's highest nuclear crisis alarm,” ahead of the exercises. The Volcano Alarm puts into motion the “procedure and process of switching over to a nuclear counterattack posture.”

The MLRS units were led by Jang Chang-ha, a top military official involved in missile development, the Rodong Sinmun reported. 

Kim Jong-un reportedly announced the success of “building up the nuclear forces to expand the operational space of tactical nuclear attack,” adding that the task of “diversifying” Pyongyang’s nuclear counterstrike capacity “has been translated into reality.”

Kim reportedly expressed “great satisfaction over the result of the drill” while praising the accuracy of the rocket launchers by comparing them to “the firing of a sniper’s rifle.”

This is not the first nuclear counter-offensive drill proclaimed by North Korean media. The Rodong Sinmun reported that Kim presided over comprehensive nuclear counterattack drills in Cholsan County on March 19. Yet this report did not mention the “Nuclear Trigger” system. It merely described the exercise as “a ballistic missile launching drill” designed to bolster “tactical nuclear attack” capacity. The recent exercises, therefore, are likely the first to mobilize the 600 mm MLRS units under the Nuclear Trigger system. 

Calling the US military and its “puppet military” of South Korean “warmongers,” North Korea accused them of having “incited extreme war fever,” and justified its exercises as a “clear warning signal to the enemies.”

The newspaper claimed that “the US and the ROK puppet military warmongers” have staged a “combined joint formation drill with more than 100 warplanes of various kinds in the Kunsan Air Force Base” since April 12. 

“On April 18,” the Rodong Sinmun continued, “the US and the ROK special units staged a ‘joint airborne infiltration drill’ for the purpose of rapidly infiltrating any region to ‘remove a target.’”

North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun released this photo along with an article on April 23, 2024, said that Kim Jong-un had overseen a simulated nuclear counterattack using 600 MM super-large multiple rocket sub-units in a drill of its “Nuclear Trigger” nuclear weapon combined management system on April 22. (KCNA/Yonhap)

“The security environment of the DPRK is seriously threatened by the hostile forces’ ceaseless military provocations to stifle the DPRK by ‘force,’” the Rodong Sinmun went on.

“This reality which cannot be overlooked urgently requires the DPRK to more overwhelmingly and more rapidly bolster up the strongest military muscle,” it wrote.

“The super-large multiple rocket launchers accurately hit the target islet within 352 km range, fully demonstrating their matchless might and perfect actual war posture,” the Rodong Sinmun proudly stated. 

On Monday, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that it had detected what appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles launched from Pyongyang and toward the East Sea.

“The missiles flew about 300 km and splashed down into the sea,” the Joint Chiefs announced in a mass text sent to journalists.

Missiles capable of traveling 350 km or more launched from Pyongyang can reach South Korea’s Gyeryongdae military complex, which contains the Army, Air Force, and Navy headquarters, and the Kunsan Air Base, which is where the US and South Korea hold their joint Korea Flying Training (KFT) exercises mentioned by the Rodong Sinmun.

Photos printed by the Rodong Sinmun show four transporter erector launchers (TEL), each armed with one super-larger rocket.  

Of Monday’s launch, the Rodong Sinmun wrote that it was a drill “for making units be versed in the procedure and process of switching over to a nuclear counterattack posture at a time when the ‘Volcano Alarm’ system, the state’s greatest nuclear crisis alarm, is issued and a drill for operating the nuclear counterattack commanding system.” 

The drills were “conducted according to the order of making the sub-units assigned to the nuclear counterattack task be practiced in the process and order and of carrying out their tasks and firing shells of super-large multiple rocket launchers tipped with simulated nuclear warheads,” according to the paper. 

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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