Large-scale US-South Korea joint military exercise begins to cope with North Korean threats; European and NATO leaders to accompany Zelenskyy to meeting with Trump; World War II veteran reunited with his tank.
1. South Korea and the United States began their annual large-scale joint military exercise on Monday to better cope with threats by nuclear-armed North Korea, which has warned the drills would deepen regional tensions and vowed to respond to “any provocation” against its territory. The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield, the second of two large-scale exercises held annually in South Korea, after another set in March, will involve 21,000 soldiers, including 18,000 South Koreans, in computer-simulated command post operations and field training. The drills, which the allies describe as defensive, could trigger a response from North Korea, which has long portrayed the allies’ exercises as invasion rehearsals and has often used them as a pretext for military demonstrations and weapons tests aimed at advancing its nuclear program.
2. European and NATO leaders announced Sunday they will join President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington to present a united front in talks with President Donald Trump on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine and firming up U.S. security guarantees now on the negotiating table. Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland are rallying around the Ukrainian president after his exclusion from Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their pledge to be at Zelenskyy’s side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated Zelenskyy in a heated Oval Office encounter.
3. The future of U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon has split the United States and its European allies, raising implications for security in the Middle East and becoming the latest snag to vex relations between the U.S. and key partners like France, Britain and Italy. At issue is the peacekeeping operation known as UNIFIL, whose mandate expires at the end of August and will need to be renewed by the U.N. Security Council to continue. It was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion, and its mission was expanded following the monthlong 2006 war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah.
4. A 100 year-old World War II veteran and Marine tank driver reunited with the tank that once carried him through the Battle of Iwo Jima, rekindling his memory of one of the fiercest fights in Marine Corps history. Marine Cpl. Leighton Willhite sat in front of the M4A3 Sherman tank, nicknamed “Lucky,” for the first time in 80 years at the National Museum of the Marine Corps’ support facility in Dumfries on Friday, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in WWII. “It’s amazing,” Willhite said. “I never thought I would see the tank again. That tank was my life.” He added that if the tank was in good shape, he would fire it up again.
5. Modern-day Marines paid tribute this month at the site where their predecessors launched the first major U.S. ground offensive against Imperial Japan in World War II. Members of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin traveled from Australia to the Solomon Islands to mark 83 years since the Battle of Guadalcanal began on Aug. 7, 1942, Capt. Johnny Fischer, a spokesman for the force, said Monday in a message on Signal. About a dozen Marines took part in a ceremony in the capital, Honiara, and visited historic battle sites, including Red Beach, Iron Bottom Sound and Edson’s Ridge, said Lt. Col. Andrew Williamson, the unit’s executive officer, in the Signal message.
- Security