Kim visited the military base two days after the start of the "Freedom Shield" exercise, which South Korea and the USA carried out to strengthen deterrence against North Korea's "nuclear and missile threats", Ednews reports via  North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

During Kim's visit to the base in the west of the country, he inspected the training facilities and training of military units and directed the army to increase exercises to improve their combat capabilities in order to control the "overwhelming" enemies and their "slightest attempts to ignite the war."

Condemning the joint exercise between South Korea and the USA, Kim warned that these countries would pay a "heavy price".

South Korea and the USA started the joint military exercise called "Freedom Shield" on March 4, with the aim of "strengthening the common defense posture".

It was reported that the exercise aims to increase the common defense posture of the two countries and will focus on responding to multi-domain operations and nuclear operations using land, sea, air and cyber tools.

While North Korea describes such joint military exercises as an invasion rehearsal, Seoul and Washington reject these claims, saying that the military exercises are for defensive purposes.