The Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, a regular joint South Korea-US military drill for defending the Korean Peninsula in contingencies, will conclude early today (the 21st).

The UFS exercise, which kicked off on the 17th, was originally scheduled to run until the 27th, but following US President Donald Trump's directive to scale it down, the training period has been significantly reduced from 11 days to 5 days.

In addition, field training exercises linked with the UFS command post exercise (CPX) are reported to have been drastically scaled back.

The UFS exercise, held every August, is normally conducted in two parts: Part 1 (defense) and Part 2 (counterattack). However, only Part 1 will be carried out before wrapping up this time.

Previously, President Trump posted on social media on the 16th local time, stating, "Considering the very good relationship Chairman Kim Jong Un and I share, I do not like the fact that the US has long agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea," and ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to drastically reduce the scale of the joint drills.

In response, the military authorities of South Korea and the US agreed to omit Part 2 of the command post exercise and downscale the field training exercises.

(Photo: Yonhap News)