South Korea and the United States kicked off annual summertime military exercises on Monday, seeking to boost their joint readiness to fend off North Korea's weapons and cyber threats, Paralel.Az reports citing Reuters.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, set to end on Aug. 29, come as North Korea races to advance its nuclear and missile programmes and tries to launch reconnaissance satellites.

The drills will reflect "realistic threats" across all domains, including the North's missile threats but also GPS jamming, cyberattacks and other lessons learned from recent incidents, the two countries' militaries have said.