[custom_adv] During a phone conversation with President Trump on Thursday, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said that the Hwasong-15 was “the most advanced North Korean missile yet, in all aspects,” according to his office. But he said it had not proved that North Korea has accomplished re-entry technology, or an ability to guide the warhead to its target. [custom_adv] The two presidents reaffirmed their determination to maximize sanctions to stop North Korea from further advancing its technologies and to pressure it to return to nuclear disarmament talks, Mr. Moon’s office said. [custom_adv] Other pictures showed North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, celebrating the launch with his key missile scientists, Jang Chang-ha and Jon Il-ho. Both Mr. Jang and Mr. Jon are important players in North Korea’s efforts to build a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. [custom_adv] Mr. Kim was also accompanied by Jo Yong-won and Yu Jin, top officials from the Munitions Industry Department of his Workers’ Party. The party agency oversees the country’s weapons development. [custom_adv] When the department submitted a plan for this week’s test of the Hwsong-15, Mr. Kim approved it with his characteristic handwriting: “For the party and for the fatherland, launch the missile bravely!” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the US of seeking to provoke North Korea into stepping up its nuclear missile programme. [custom_adv] He rejected a call by the American envoy to the UN Security Council to sever ties with the North after its latest ballistic missile test. Russia argues sanctions do not work and advocates negotiations instead. The US has warned that North Korea's government will be "utterly destroyed" if war breaks out. [custom_adv] On Wednesday, the North tested its first missile in two months, saying the continental US was now within striking distance. However, defence experts have cast doubt on its ability to master the technology needed to launch a missile carrying a warhead capable of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. [custom_adv] Speaking on a visit to the Belarussian capital Minsk, Mr Lavrov asked whether America was actively seeking to destroy North Korea. "One gets the impression that everything has been done on purpose to make Kim Jong-un snap and carry out further inadvisable actions," he said. [custom_adv] What North Korean missile pictures tell us What damage could North Korea do? What exactly did Lavrov say?