South Korean Army stages major artillery exercise near maritime border

The South Korean Army carried out large-scale nighttime live-fire drills in the border county of Goseong earlier this week, aiming to reinforce military preparedness amid ongoing tensions with North Korea, military officials announced on April 18.

The two-day exercise, conducted on April 16-17, involved around 300 troops from the Army's Third Corps and took place in the coastal county of Goseong, approximately 160 kilometres northeast of Seoul, Caliber.Az reports, citing the South Korean agency Yonhap.

This marked the Army’s first such operation in a maritime buffer zone near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the East Sea since July 2023. That earlier drill came just a month after South Korea officially suspended the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement in response to North Korea’s provocative tactics, including the release of propaganda-laden balloons and deliberate attempts to jam GPS signals near border islands.

The suspension of the pact allowed South Korea to resume previously restricted military exercises, including artillery and naval training, as well as regiment-level field operations. These drills had been prohibited under the agreement, which had established land and maritime buffer zones and designated no-fly zones to prevent accidental clashes near the heavily militarised border.

This week’s live-fire exercise saw the deployment of roughly 40 critical pieces of military hardware, including K9A1 self-propelled howitzers, Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers, and advanced surveillance assets such as counter-battery radar systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

During the operation, troops identified a simulated enemy threat using radar, engaged with an immediate volley of fire, then deployed UAVs to assess the impact before launching a second round of strikes. In total, some 600 artillery shells were fired into the waters south of the NLL, demonstrating the Army’s capacity for rapid and coordinated response.

“The Army is committed to maintaining a robust readiness posture capable of responding decisively to any enemy provocations through realistic, site-specific combat training,” the military stated.

To ensure public safety, the Army noted that safety protocols were shared with local residents ahead of the drills and implemented in coordination with the Coast Guard throughout the exercises.

By Tamilla Hasanova