South Korea's military says North Korea has fired several ballistic missiles into the sea. The launch Monday happened hours after South Korean and U.S. troops kicked off their large annual combined drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile firings, North Korea's fifth missile launch event this year, were detected from the North's Hwanghae province but gave no further details such as how far they flew. Earlier Monday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries began their drills. The exercises began after the South Korean and U.S. militaries paused live-fire training while Seoul investigates how two of its fighter jets mistakenly bombed a civilian area during a warm-up drill last week.

Russia has fired dozens of missiles and drones across Ukraine for a second day. Ukraine's president says some were shot down by Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets before they reached their targets. It's the apparent first use by Ukraine of the F-16s to shoot down a missile. The Russian onslaught killed five people and destroyed some critical infrastructure in multiple regions. That has prolonged power outages in sweltering heat. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed calls for the U.S. to lift restrictions and let Ukraine strike deep inside Russia. Ukraine's military chief says troops now control nearly 500 square miles of Russia's Kursk region.

A senior Ukrainian military officer says that the country's air force may keep some of the F-16 fighter jets it's set to receive from its Western allies at foreign bases to protect them from Russian strikes. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have committed to providing Ukraine with over 60 U.S.-made F-16s. Ukrainian pilots are currently undergoing training to fly them ahead of the deliveries expected to start later this year. Serhii Holubtsov, head of aviation within Ukraine's air force, told the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that "a certain number of aircraft will be stored at secure air bases outside Ukraine so that they are not targeted here."