The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said on the 22nd that it held this year's Ulchi exercise nationwide control chiefs meeting.
Before the Ulchi exercise, the government holds a control chiefs meeting every year to share the exercise direction and control guidelines. The meeting was chaired by Minister Yoon Ho-jung of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) and attended by about 80 officials, including Deputy Ministers for Planning and Coordination of central administrative agencies and vice heads of metropolitan and provincial governments.
The Ulchi exercise is an emergency preparedness drill conducted once a year nationwide at the government level to protect people's lives and property in the event of war, an incident, or a national emergency equivalent to these. Control chiefs are served by the Deputy Minister for Planning and Coordination of central administrative agencies and vice heads of metropolitan and provincial governments (administrative vice mayors and vice governors).
This year's Ulchi exercise will be held nationwide for four days from Aug. 18 to 21. About 4,000 agencies, including administrative bodies at the eup, myeon, and dong levels and above, public institutions and organizations, and companies under priority management, with about 580,000 participants, will take part.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) plans to strengthen realistic, scenario-based training that reflects the changing security environment in this year's Ulchi exercise and to expand hands-on drills directly led by agency heads to enhance the effectiveness of the exercise.
To that end, it will conduct joint drills with relevant agencies assuming complex crisis situations such as unmanned aircraft (drone) attacks and cyberattacks targeting key national facilities, to inspect the pan-government integrated response system and strengthen interagency cooperation capabilities.
It will also carry out emergency call-ups of public officials and, through various decision-making procedure drills to convert the peacetime administrative system to a wartime system, strengthen response capabilities so that a rapid wartime transition system operates smoothly even in real situations.
In addition, on Aug. 20, a nationwide civil defense evacuation drill will be conducted so that people can learn emergency action guidelines and swift evacuation procedures.
Minister Yoon Ho-jung said, "The Ulchi exercise is the most important training to maintain government functions in a national crisis and to protect people's lives and safety," and added, "As the nature of war—such as unmanned aircraft (drones), artificial intelligence (AI), and cyberattacks—is expanding across national infrastructure and all aspects of people's lives, please prepare effective response measures that reflect the changing security environment."
He added, "We must thoroughly prepare so that it becomes training just like the real thing by checking whether each agency's Chungmu plan and emergency preparedness manuals operate without gaps in an actual crisis."