“The muscle-flexing of the hostile forces near the areas of our state’s sovereignty and security may cause unimaginably terrible consequences,” Kim Yo Yong said on Tuesday, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“The enemies should never try to test our patience, will and capability,” Kim said.

“We will watch to what extent the enemy violates the security of our state and what it is playing at,” she continued.

Kim’s remarks follow the start of the joint Freedom Shield exercises on Monday, which will run for 10 days and involve 18,000 South Korean and US military personnel.

The military manoeuvres are designed to “enhance the combined, joint, all-domain, and interagency operational environment, thereby strengthening the Alliance’s response capabilities,” United States Forces Korea said.

This year’s Freedom Shield will involve 22 field training drills, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, which is fewer than half the number carried out last year.

Kim added on Tuesday that there was no justification to hold the exercises, which have been called a “defensive” action by Washington and Seoul in the past.

“No  matter what justification they may establish and how the elements of the drill may be coordinated, the clear confrontational nature of the high-intensity large-scale war drill staged by the most hostile entities in collusion at the doorstep of [North Korea] never changes,” she said.

“The recent global geopolitical crisis and complicated international events prove that all military manoeuvres of the field warfare troops, to be conducted by the enemy states, assume no distinction between defence and attack, training and actual warfare,” she continued, in an apparent reference to the US-Israel war on Iran.

South Korea and North Korea have technically been at war since 1953, when an armistice agreement paused fighting but did not formally end the armed confrontation.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in 2024 that he would no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea, although it remains Seoul’s long-term goal.

An official at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told Yonhap that Kim’s remarks on Tuesday were relatively muted by North Korean standards.

The statement did not refer directly to the US or threaten to use nuclear weapons, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Kim appears to have limited her response to merely pinpointing the South Korea-US exercise, taking the current security situation into account,” the official told Yonhap.

North Korea sealed itself off at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, and started to scale back restrictions in the middle of 2023.

It opened up to Russian visitors in 2024, but it was only last month that Western tourists were allowed into the remote, eastern city Rason.

However several tour companies now say that trips to the reclusive country have been cancelled until further notice. Pyongyang has not given a reason for the sudden halt.

“Just received news from our Korean partners that Rason is closed to everyone. We will keep you posted,” China-based KTG Tours, which specialises in North Korean tours, said Wednesday on Facebook.

Young Pioneer Tours and Koryo Tours were among the other agencies that have announced the suspension.

Those planning tours in April and May should refrain from booking flights “until we have more information”, Young Pioneer Tours said in a Facebook post.

On 20 February, the first Western tourists started arriving in Rason, a city earmarked by the North as a special economic zone, to trial new financial policies.

Tour operators told the BBC the visitors’ movements were even more restricted than on pre-pandemic trips – they had fewer opportunities to wander the streets and talk to locals.

Phone signals and internet access were also not available in the hermit state.

One tour leader said he suspects Rason was picked because the area is relatively contained and easy to control.

Earlier this week, Koryo Tours said it was accepting international applications for the Pyongyang Marathon for the first time in five years. The event is scheduled for 6 April but it is now unclear if these can still be processed.

North Korea saw some 350,000 foreign tourists in 2019, of whom 90% were Chinese, according to media reports.

It said the exact number of extra troops sent was unknown, but military officials quoted in South Korean media have said they believed it was at least 1,000.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have confirmed the new deployment.

North Korea is thought to have suffered heavy losses in the four months since its troops were first deployed to help Russia in its war with Ukraine.

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In January, Western officials told the BBC they believed at least 1,000 of the 11,000 troops sent from North Korea had been killed in the past three months. North Korea and Russia did not comment.

The South Korean intelligence agency also said on Thursday that North Korean troops already in Russia had been re-deployed to the front line in Kursk at the start of February “after about a month of lull”.

Ukrainian special forces fighting in Kursk told the BBC in January that they had not seen any North Korean troops for weeks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later confirmed they had returned to the front line.

Earlier reports attributed to South Korean intelligence suggested that the North Korean soldiers were unprepared for modern warfare, and were especially vulnerable to Ukrainian drones.

However, defectors and other military experts have told the BBC these troops should not be underestimated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The fighting has led to heavy losses on both sides.

Last August, Ukraine made a lightning thrust into the Russian Kursk region, taking border guards by surprise. Russia has been trying to drive them out ever since.

While Ukraine’s gains have since been steadily pushed back, partly due to the arrival of the North Koreans in Russia in October, it still retains hundreds of square kilometres of Russian territory and is inflicting huge losses on its enemy.

Russia’s military has not publicly revealed its battlefield casualties since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had been killed.

Zelensky has put Ukraine’s military casualties at 45,100 – but a number of military experts in both Ukraine and the West believe the losses are much higher.

Reports began emerging that North Korean soldiers had been deployed in October, following the deepening of bilateral ties between Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This included the signing a security and defence treaty.

Besides begging, he ran errands for soldiers and sold foraged mushrooms. Sometimes he stole food out of sheer hunger: once he snatched a lunchbox that sat unattended at an underground station. Inside was a scoop of spoiled rice.

This was just “part of everyday life” for many North Koreans, he says, adding that his own life was so consumed with survival that it left little room for dreams.

But dream he did. Later on this year, the 25-year-old will debut in the US as a member of a K-pop boy band.

1Verse (pronounced “universe”) is made up of five members: Hyuk, Seok who is also from North Korea, Aito from Japan, and Asian Americans Kenny and Nathan – all prefer to go by their first names. They are set to make history as the first K-pop boy band to debut with North Korean defectors.

Hyuk was born in a seaside village in Kyongsong county and raised by his father and grandmother, after his parents broke up when he was just four.

Later, his mother fled the North to settle in the South and reached out to him in an attempt to get him to join her. But he refused as he was close to his father and did not want to leave him.

Hyuk says his family was “not extremely poor” to begin with, but the situation quickly deteriorated after his parents separated. His father didn’t want to work and his grandmother was too old, so Hyuk was left to his own devices to survive.

Eventually, his father persuaded him to join his mother, and in 2013 Hyuk escaped from North Korea.

It took months for him to arrive in the South, after going through several countries. He has chosen not to reveal specifics of the route, as he fears putting other future defectors at risk.

Once in the South, he lived with his mother for just a year, before moving to a boarding school with his mum’s financial support. However, he struggled to cope with South Korea’s fiercely competitive education system, as Hyuk had barely finished primary school before his defection.

Writing was the one thing he found solace in, he says.

He started with short poems alluding to his past life in North Korea. “I couldn’t openly share what I’d been through, but I still wanted to make a record of it.”

At first, Hyuk believed his story couldn’t be understood by others, but was encouraged by friends and teachers in his school’s music club – and eventually found his passion in rap.

Growing up, music had been a luxury, let alone K-pop which was something he had barely heard of. But now, he channelled his thoughts of feeling lonely and of missing his father into music, referring to himself as “the loneliest of the loners” – a line in Ordinary Person, a rap song he composed as a part of a pre-debut project.

Hyuk graduated from high school aged 20. Afterwards, he worked part-time at restaurants and factories to support himself.

But it was in 2018 when he was featured in an educational TV programme that his luck changed. His unique background and rapping talent caught the eye of music producer Michelle Cho, who was formerly from SM Entertainment, the agency behind some of K-pop’s biggest acts. She offered him a spot in her agency, Singing Beetle.

“I didn’t trust Michelle for about a year because I thought she was cheating me,” Hyuk says, adding that defectors are often targeted by scams in the South.

But gradually he realised that Ms Cho was “investing way too much time and money” for it to be anything but genuine.

Kim Seok, 24, also defected and arrived in the South in 2019, though his experience was vastly different to that of Seok’s.

Coming from a relatively better-off family, Seok lived close to the border with China and had access to K-pop and K-drama through smuggled USBs and SD cards.

Due to safety reasons, we are unable to reveal much more about his life in the North and how he came to the South.

Both boys were described by Ms Cho as “blank canvases”, adding that she had never encountered trainees quite like them.

Unlike Aito and Kenny, who had been immersed in music and dance from an early age, Hyuk and Seok were complete beginners.

“They had absolutely no grasp of pop culture,” she said.

But their ability to “endure physical challenges” astonished Ms Cho. They pushed through gruelling hours of dance practice with such determination that she was worried they were “overdoing it”.

Apart from music and dance lessons, their training also covered etiquette and engaging in discussions, to prepare them for media interviews.

“I don’t think they were used to questioning things or expressing their opinion,” says Ms Cho. “At first, when a trainer asked the reasoning behind their thoughts, the only response was, ‘Because you said so last time’.”

But after more than three years, Hyuk has made remarkable progress, she says.

“Now, Hyuk questions many things. For example, if I ask him to do something, he’ll reply ‘Why? Why is it necessary?’ Sometimes, I regret what I’ve done,” says Ms Cho chuckling.

But what do the other two boys think of their bandmates?

“I was kind of afraid at first because North Korea has a hostile relationship with Japan. I thought North Koreans would be scary, but that turned out not to be true,” says Aito, who at 20 is the youngest of the four.

Kenny, who spent much of his life in the US, adds that there were also small cultural differences that have taken him time to get used to.

“Korean culture is very [communal] in that you eat together… that was a culture shock [to me]”, he said. “I usually don’t like eating with people, I prefer Netflix in my ear. But their joy comes from being collective.”

Late last year, the band added a fifth member, Nathan, an American of mixed Laotian and Thai heritage to the group.

They aim to debut in the US later this year – a decision that the label hopes could attract more American fans.

Dozens of K-pop groups make their debut each year and only a few, typically those managed by major labels, become popular.

So it’s still too early to say if 1Verse will go on to resonate with audiences. But Hyuk has big dreams, hoping that it might be possible one day for his fellow North Koreans to listen to his songs.

With human rights activists often sending leaflets and USBs containing K-culture content via balloons and bottles towards the North, this may prove to be less of a pipe dream than it sounds, though Hyuk also has his worries.

To avoid being seen as a vocal critic of North Korea, he refers to his homeland as “the upper side” in interviews and avoids mentioning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim has in recent years been ratcheting up his crackdown on the inflow of K-culture. Since 2020, the consumption and distribution of such content has become a crime punishable by death.

A rare video obtained by BBC Korean last year, believed to be filmed in 2022, shows two teenage boys publicly sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for watching and distributing K-dramas.

One academic says it would cause a “stir” in North Korea should 1Verse’s music become a hit.

“If a North Korean defector openly embraced their identity and went on to become a world-class activist, I think that would cause a stir in the North,” said Ha Seung-hee, an academic specialising in music and media at Dongguk University’s Institute of North Korean Studies.

But his main motivation, Hyuk says, is to prove that defectors can be a success.

“Many defectors see an insurmountable gap between themselves and K-pop idols. It is hardly a career option for us,” said Hyuk.

“So if I succeed, other defectors might be encouraged [to] have even bigger dreams. That’s why I am trying my hardest.”

In a video address on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian army had “brought back in North Korean soldiers” who were carrying out “new assaults” in the region partially occupied by Ukraine.

He added “hundreds of Russian and North Korean military” personnel had been “destroyed”.

In January, Western officials told the BBC they believed at least 1,000 of the 11,000 troops sent from North Korea had been killed in the past three months. North Korea and Russia have not commented.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The fighting has led to heavy losses on both sides.

Last week, Ukrainian special forces fighting in Kursk told the BBC they had not seen any North Korean troops there for the past 21 days.

A spokesman said it was probable they had been pulled out after suffering heavy combat losses.

The spokesman added that he was only referring to areas where his forces were fighting, without giving any details about how long that front line was.

Recent reports attributed to South Korean intelligence have suggested the North Koreans soldiers are unprepared for modern warfare, and are especially vulnerable to Ukrainian drones.

Military experts say the reports of North Korean casualties, if they continue at this pace, are unsustainable.

The soldiers were deployed after Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un deepened bilateral ties in recent months, including signing a security and defence treaty.

Pyongyang’s assistance to Moscow now also extends to large amounts of ammunition and weapons.

The troops were also seen to have been sent to boost Russia’s fighting forces who have seen significant losses.

Russia’s military has not publicly revealed its battlefield casualties since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had been killed.

But Ukraine’s president said this week up to 350,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, and other reports suggest that number could be significantly higher.

Zelensky put Ukraine’s military casualties at 45,100 – but a number of military experts in both Ukraine and the West believe the losses are much higher.

Ukrainian troops launched a lightning offensive in Kursk six months ago, seizing more than 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian territory.

Since then, Russian forces have managed to retake a sizeable chunk of the region.

However, Zelensky on Friday told Reuters news agency that Ukraine had launched a new offensive in Kursk on Thursday, advancing 2.5km (1.5 miles).

Russia’s military said the Ukrainian attacks had been repelled.

The claims by the warring sides have not been independently verified.

In other key developments on Friday:

• Russia’s military said its forces captured a key town of Toretsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region – but a Ukrainian military spokesman said fighting was continuing in the industrial hub
• US President Donald Trump said he would “probably be meeting President Zelensky next week, and I will probably be talking to President Putin. I’d like to see that war end”.

A spokesman said it was likely they had pulled out after suffering heavy losses.

Last week, Western officials told the BBC that, out of some 11,000 troops sent from North Korea to fight for Russia, 1,000 had been killed in just three months.

North Korea and Russia have not commented.

On Friday, the Ukrainian special forces spokesman told the BBC he was only referring to areas in the Kursk region where his forces were fighting in.

The spokesman did not say how long that front line was.

And while this is not the full picture, it does suggest significant North Korean casualties.

Separately, the New York Times also reported that the North Koreans had been pulled off the front lines.

The newspaper quoted US officials as saying the withdrawal may not be a permanent one, and the soldiers could return after receiving additional training or after the Russians come up with new ways of deploying them to avoid such heavy casualties.

Reports attributed to South Korean intelligence say the North Koreans are unprepared for the realities of modern warfare, and are especially vulnerable to being targeted by Ukrainian drones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un have in recent months deepened bilateral ties, signing a security and defence treaty.

Pyongyang’s assistance to Moscow now also extends to large amounts of ammunition and weapons.

Last August, elite Ukrainian troops launched a lightning offensive in Kursk, seizing more than 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian territory.

Since then, Russian forces have managed to retake a sizeable chunk of that region.

Kyiv’s surprise incursion was aimed at changing the dynamics of the war.

It was initially hoped the operation would relieve pressure on other parts of the more than 1,000km-long (620 miles) frontline, particularly in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow is continuing its relentless – albeit slow – advance in the east, seizing a number of settlements in the Donetsk region in recent weeks.

Now Kyiv is looking to hold on to the land it occupies in Kursk as leverage for any possible ceasefire or peace negotiations with Moscow.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump was asked about his plans for Kim during an interview on Thursday and whether he would “reach out”.

“I will, yeah. He liked me,” Trump said.

Trump and Kim had an unusually strong rapport during the president’s first term in office for two nations at odds since the Korean War some 70 years ago. Trump has previously described their relationship as “very, very good” and has referred to Kim as a “smart guy” in the media.

During his first term in office, Trump met with Kim on three separate occasions between 2018 and 2019.

In  2019, he made history as the first sitting US president to visit North Korea since a 1953 armistice brought a de facto end to the Korean War.

Following his re-election in November, Trump’s team said they were weighing reopening “direct talks” with Kim.

Trump’s close relationship with Kim, however, has put him at odds in the past with South Korea, a US treaty ally, and potentially even members of his own cabinet as he heads into his second term in office.

Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, described Kim as a “dictator” at his Senate confirmation hearing and called for a “very serious look at broader North Korean policies”.

The launch on Monday – Pyongyang’s first in two months – came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Seoul for talks with some of South Korea’s key leaders.

Hypersonic weapons are more difficult to track and shoot down, as they are able to travel at more than five times the speed of sound.

North Korea is claiming their missile flew 12 times the speed of sound, for about 1,500km.

South Korea’s military earlier said the missile flew 1,100km before falling into the sea, adding that it “strongly condemns” this “clear act of provocation”.

North Korea has previously test-fired hypersonic missiles. Pictures published by KCNA showed that Monday’s missile resembled one that was launched in April last year.

But Pyongyang claims its new hypersonic missile features a new “flight and guidance control system” and a new engine made of carbon fibre.

The country’s leader Kim Jong Un said Monday’s launch “clearly showed the rivals what we are doing and that we are fully ready to use even any means to defend our legitimate interests”, state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday.

Ankit Panda, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the launch of a new weapon is “unsurprising”.

“We’ve known that North Korea has been working with composite materials for use in missiles for a number of years now.

“The appeal of these materials is to broadly improve the performance and reliability of the payload… Better materials can increase the odds of their survival to the target,” he told the BBC.

While hypersonic weaponry has existed for decades, in recent years new missiles have been developed that are much more agile, can re-enter the atmosphere much quicker and conduct evasive manoeuvres, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

Hypersonic missiles can be detected by space-based sensors. Various reports suggest there is existing technology that can intercept hypersonic missiles despite their unpredictable trajectories. These are most likely to be deployed at the final phase of their flight, where they would be flying at a lower speed after a long flight through the atmosphere.

While in Seoul on Monday, Blinken had said the US believes Russia plans to share advanced space and satellite technology with North Korea.

He added that Moscow “may be close to reversing” its decades-long commitment to denuclearising the Korean peninsula by recognising Pyongyang as a nuclear power.

During his visit, the US Secretary of State met South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-mok, where he described the alliance between Washington and Seoul as a “cornerstone of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.

South Korea’s military said it has strengthened surveillance for the North’s future missile launches and is “closely sharing information” on the launch with the US and Japan.

The launch took place amid political chaos in South Korea, which has embroiled the country for weeks after suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law attempt in December.

Yoon, who was stripped of his presidential powers after lawmakers voted to impeach him, now faces arrest. The constitutional court is also deliberating whether he should be removed from office.

Pyongyang previously mocked Yoon’s shock martial law declaration as an “insane act” and, with no suggestion of irony, accused Yoon of “brazenly brandishing blades and guns of fascist dictatorship at his own people”.

North Korea is widely regarded as one of the world’s most repressive totalitarian states. Its leader Kim Jong Un and his family have ruled the hermit nation for decades as a dictatorial dynasty, developing and promoting a cult of personality.

The last time Pyongyang fired missiles was in November, a day before the US presidential election, when it launched at least seven short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast.

Earlier that week, the US had flown a long-range bomber during trilateral military drills with South Korea and Japan in a show of power, drawing condemnation from Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong.

The missile flew 1,100km before falling into the sea, the military said, adding that it “strongly condemns” this “clear act of provocation”.

The launch comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Seoul for talks with some of South Korea’s key leaders.

Earlier on Monday, Blinken met acting president Choi Sang-mok, where he described the alliance between Washington and Seoul as a “cornerstone of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula”.

South Korea’s military says it has strengthened surveillance for the North’s future missile launches and is “closely sharing information” on today’s launch with the US and Japan.

Today’s launch also comes amid political chaos in South Korea, which has embroiled the country for weeks after suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law attempt in December.

Yoon, who was stripped of his presidential powers after lawmakers voted to impeach him, now faces arrest. The constitutional court is also deliberating whether he should be removed from office.

Pyongyang previously mocked Yoon’s shock martial law declaration as an “insane act” and, with no suggestion of irony, accused Yoon of “brazenly brandishing blades and guns of fascist dictatorship at his own people”.

North Korea is widely regarded as one of the world’s most repressive totalitarian states. Its leader Kim Jong Un and his family have ruled the hermit nation for decades as a dictatorial dynasty, developing and promoting a cult of personality.

The last time Pyongyang fired missiles was in November, a day before the US presidential election, when it launched at least seven short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast.

Earlier that week, the US had flown a long-range bomber during trilateral military drills with South Korea and Japan in a show of power, drawing condemnation from Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong.

Research firm Chainalysis says hackers affiliated with the reclusive state stole $1.3bn of digital currencies – more than double last year’s haul.

Some of the thefts appear to be linked to North Korean hackers posing as remote IT workers to infiltrate crypto and other technology firms, the report says.

It comes as the price of bitcoin has more than doubled this year as incoming US president Donald Trump is expected to be more crypto-friendly than his predecessor, Joe Biden.

Overall, the amount of cryptocurrency stolen by hackers in 2024 increased by 21% from last year but it was still below the levels recorded in 2021 and 2022, the report said.

“The rise in stolen crypto in 2024 underscores the need for the industry to address an increasingly complex and evolving threat landscape.

“It said the majority of crypto stolen this year was due to compromised private keys – which are used to control access to users’ assets on crypto platforms.

“Given that centralised exchanges manage substantial amounts of user funds, the impact of a private key compromise can be devastating”, the study added.

Some of the most significant incidents this year included the theft of the equivalent of $300m in bitcoin from Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, DMM Bitcoin, and the loss of nearly $235m from WazirX, an India-based crypto exchange.

The US government has said the North Korean regime resorts to cryptocurrency theft and other forms of cybercrime to circumvent international sanctions and raise money.

Last week, a federal court in St Louis indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly being part of a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting funds from US companies and funnelling money to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.

The US State Department also announced that it would offer a reward of up to $5m for anyone who could provide more information about the alleged scheme.