Accusations by North Korea, Russia and China that U.S.-led military exercises provoked Pyongyang into launching ballistic missiles in response are “baloney,” a State Department spokesperson said Monday.

“I think you saw last week when there was a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) hearing on this — you saw the PRC and Russia and other countries parrot this false claim that U.S. provocations were the origination of these ballistic missile launches,” spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a press briefing. “That's baloney and absolutely not the case.”