Russia's nuclear threat 'unacceptable', says Japan's PM Kishida on Hiroshima anniversary

Japan’s prime minister lashed out at Russian threats to deploy nuclear weapons on the 78th anniversary of Hiroshima’s atomic destruction on Sunday.

When the United States unleashed atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities only days before the conclusion of World War II, about 140,000 people died in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 74,000 in Nagasaki three days later.

“Japan, as the only nation to have suffered atomic bombings in war, will continue efforts towards a nuclear-free world,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a ceremony in Hiroshima.

“The path towards it is becoming increasingly difficult because of deepening divisions in the international community over nuclear disarmament and Russia’s nuclear threat,” he said.

“Given this situation, it is all the more important to bring back international momentum towards the realisation of a nuclear-free world,” he said.

“Devastation brought to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear weapons can never be repeated,” said Kishida, whose family comes from Hiroshima.

Kishida’s comments echoed those of UN chief Antonio Guterres, who issued a statement on the Hiroshima anniversary saying that “some countries are recklessly rattling the nuclear sabre once again, threatening to use these tools of annihilation.”

“In the face of these threats, the global community must speak as one. Any use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable,” Guterres said.

Thousands of people attended the memorial, including survivors, families, and foreign leaders from a record 111 nations, to pray for those killed or injured in the explosion and to ask for global peace.

However, due to the Ukraine conflict, Hiroshima did not invite Russia or Belarus to the event for the second year in a row.

At 8:15 a.m. (2315 GMT Thursday), when the first nuclear weapon used in conflict was dropped, participants, many of whom were clad in black, gave a quiet prayer.

Kishida hosted the G7 conference earlier this year in the city.

Kishida has attempted to raise the profile of nuclear disarmament by taking leaders of affluent democracies to Hiroshima’s peace park memorials and museum.

However, there is little appetite to reduce stockpiles with Russia repeatedly issuing thinly veiled warnings that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, as well as repeated North Korean missile tests and stalling efforts towards non-proliferation.

Earlier this month, more than 100 medical journals across the world issued a rare joint call for urgent action to eliminate nuclear weapons, warning that the threat of nuclear catastrophe was “great and growing.”