Radioactive gas found after North Korea's latest nuclear test

As South Korea finally confirmed traces of radioactive material from North Korea’s sixth nuclear test Wednesday, Pyongyang and Washington continued their war of words over the latest round of sanctions slapped on the hermit kingdom.

In Seoul, the government said traces of radioactive xenon gas were confirmed to be from a North Korean nuclear test conducted on September 3. But the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said it was unable to confirm if the test had been for a hydrogen bomb — as Pyongyang claimed — or how powerful the blast had been.

Meanwhile, a couple of hundred kilometers north in Pyongyang, the North Korean regime was describing its neighbor as a “puppet” of the U.S. government in an editorial in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper.

Read: We go inside North Korea

Turning its attention to Washington, the North’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the latest round of sanctions — passed unanimously by the 15-member UN Security Council Monday — were “completely suffocating its state and people through full-scale economic blockade.” Speaking Tuesday, the North’s ambassador to the UN, Han Tae Song, warned that “forthcoming measures will make the U.S. suffer the greatest pain it ever experienced in its history.”

Despite the rhetoric, U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t seem to think the sanctions were anything to get worked up about. “We think it’s just another very small step, not a big deal,” Trump said, “those sanctions are nothing compared to what ultimately will have to happen.”

Elsewhere in Washington on Tuesday, Susan Thornton, the acting top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, laid out how the White House approaches North Korea, saying their policy had three sections: “maximum pressure,” “peaceful pressure,” and “strategic accountability.”

Read: The VICE News Guide to North Korea

Despite Trump’s recent “fire and fury” comments about Pyongyang, Thornton claimed: “We will not ape Pyongyang’s well-honed practice of carelessly and needlessly escalating tensions, but we are ready to respond if necessary.”