North Korea is putting its munitions industry and nuclear weapons sector on a war footing, following months of raised tensions with the U.S. and NATO-aligned countries in the region, a run of missile tests and border activity.

Earlier this month, North Korea launched a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the U.S., which Washington quickly condemned.

A spokesperson for North Korea’s Defense Ministry said on December 17 that Washington and Seoul “are going to finish the end of the year with a preview of a nuclear war.”

The “grave political and military situation” on and around the Korean peninsula “has reached its limit,” the secretive country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, said in readouts published by Pyongyang on Thursday.

“Clear is the intention of the U.S. which dispatched the nuclear-powered submarine Missouri to the Korean peninsula as soon as it hatched a dangerous plot for a nuclear war in Washington,” North Korea’s Defense Ministry said.

North Korean soldiers were present at numerous, previously out-of-use guard posts along the border between the two countries, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said at the time.

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