South Korea and the United States will wrap up their combined Freedom Shield military exercise on Thursday.

According to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, the allies carried out the annual exercises based on scenarios that reflect diverse security threats, focusing on operations utilizing land, sea, air, cyber and space assets and on neutralizing North Korea’s nuclear threats. 

In particular, the allies designed the exercises to respond to the North’s nuclear threat, for which they are currently developing detailed plans, focusing on deterring and preventing the North’s use of nuclear weapons. 

Australia, Canada, France, the U.K. and eight other member states of the United Nations Command(UNC) participated in this year’s drills and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission(NNSC) observed them.

North Korea, which has strongly criticized the joint drills, said on Thursday that its leader Kim Jong-un guided a military demonstration involving tanks the previous day. Last week, Kim guided artillery firing drills for two straight days in apparent protest of the combined exercises. 

North Korea also attempted to disrupt GPS signals in South Korea for five consecutive days from March 5, a day after the Freedom Shield exercise kicked off. However, the nation was somewhat quiet this year compared to the past with a lack of ballistic missile launches during the training period.