SEOUL: The United States flew long-range B-1B bombers in a show of force against North Korea on Tuesday, days after the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to resist a US-led push to eliminate the North’s nuclear program.
North Korea often reacts to the US deployment of B-1B bombers and other powerful military assets with missile tests and fiery rhetoric. Tuesday’s flyover of the US bombers could draw an angrier response because it happened when North Korea was marking a key anniversary – the 113th birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of the current leader.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the US bombers participated in a South Korea-US aerial drill over the Korean Peninsula to strengthen the allies’ combined operational capability and demonstrate their deterrence capability against North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.
A ministry statement said South Korean F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and American F-16 fighter jets also took part in the training. It said South Korea and the US will continue to expand their joint military exercises to respond to North Korean nuclear threats.
It was the second time a US B-1B’s had participated in a drill with South Korea since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.
In February, North Korea’s Defense Ministry slammed the B-1B’s earlier flyover as proof of intensifying US-led provocations since Trump’s inauguration. It pledged to counter the strategic threat of the US with strategic means. Days later, North Korea test-fired cruise missiles in what it called an attempt to show its nuclear counterattack capability.
Trump has repeatedly said he will reach out to Kim Jong Un to revive diplomacy. North Korea hasn’t directly responded to Trump’s outreach.
Last Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong – Kim’s sister and a senior official – derided the US and its Asian allies over what she called their “daydream” of denuclearizing the North, insisting that the country will never give up its nuclear weapons program. Her statement came as a response to a recent meeting among the top diplomats of the United States, South Korea and Japan where they reaffirmed their commitment to push for the North’s denuclearization.
The Kim Il Sung birthday, called “the Day of Sun,” is one of the most important holidays in North Korea, where a state-sponsored cult of personality treats key members of the ruling Kim family like gods. On Tuesday, the country’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper issued an editorial urging the public to rally behind Kim Jong Un to achieve a national prosperity. In recent days, North Korea has held seminars, performances and other events commemorating the founder’s achievements.

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was not easy to agree with the United States on the key parts of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and that Russia would never again allow itself to depend economically on the West.
US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the three-year war in Ukraine, though a deal has yet to be agreed.
“It is not easy to agree the key components of a settlement. They are being discussed,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper when asked if Moscow and Washington had agreement on some aspects of a possible peace deal.
“We are well aware of what a mutually beneficial deal looks like, which we have never rejected, and what a deal looks like that could lead us into another trap,” Lavrov said in the interview published in Tuesday’s edition.
The Kremlin on Sunday said that it was too early to expect results from the restoration of more normal relations with Washington.
Lavrov said that Russia’s position had been set out clearly by President Vladimir Putin in June 2024, when Putin demanded Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.
“We’re talking about the rights of the people who live on these lands. That is why these lands are dear to us. And we cannot give them up, allowing people to be kicked out of there,” Lavrov said.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and parts of four other regions Moscow now claims are part of Russia — a claim not recognized by most countries.
Lavrov praised Trump’s “common sense” and for saying that previous US support of Ukraine’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.
But Russia’s political elite, he said, would not countenance any moves that led Russia back toward economic, military, technological or agricultural dependence on the West.
The globalization of the world economy, Lavrov said, had been destroyed by sanctions imposed on Russia, China and Iran by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine describe Russia’s 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the war in Ukraine as part of a battle with a declining West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.