Nuclear weapons must never be used, Nagasaki survivor tells Putin before Nobel ceremony

OSLO - Russian President Vladimir Putin does not truly understand the destructive power of nuclear weapons, a 92-year-old survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki said on Dec 9, on the eve of his Japanese survivors’ group

receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Terumi Tanaka was referring to threats made by Mr Putin and other senior Russian officials to

use nuclear weapons if necessary

to counter what they see as an aggressive and hostile West as the war in Ukraine grinds towards its third anniversary.

In November, Mr Putin, whose country has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks.

The Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 was won by Nihon Hidankyo, a group of now elderly survivors of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons”.

“I don’t think President Putin truly understands what nuclear weapons are for human beings,” Mr Tanaka, a co-chairman of the group, told a news conference when asked about the Russian leader’s rhetoric and his decision to lower the threshold.

“I don’t think he has even thought about this or understood this... What we need to do is to have him (Putin) really understand what these are.”

“We would like to say nuclear weapons are things which must never be used,” Mr Tanaka said, adding that he had sent such a message to the Russian leader on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo.

On Dec 10, Mr Tanaka will give the Nobel lecture on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo at a ceremony at Oslo City Hall. The group’s two other co-chairmen, Mr Shigemitsu Tanaka, 84, and Mr Toshiyuki Mimaki, 82, will also attend.

Crowd-funding

Nihon Hidankyo has sent a 30-member delegation of “hibakusha” – survivors of the atomic bombings in Japan – and their children and grandchildren to the ceremony.

To afford the costly trip, which required additional helpers and interpreters, Nihon Hidankyo led a crowd-funding campaign, hoping to raise 10 million yen (S$88,600) – a target they easily exceeded as supporters pledged more than quadruple that amount.

However, the appeal also highlights the advanced age of the “hibakusha” and the visible and invisible scars they still carry nearly 80 years after the explosions that ended World War II.

An estimated 210,000 people died, either immediately or over time, as a result of the bombs dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima on Aug 6 and Nagasaki on Aug 9. Today’s nuclear weapons are far more powerful than those used at that time.

As at March 2024, there were still 106,825 atomic bomb survivors registered in Japan, data from the country’s Health Ministry showed, with an average age of 85.6 years. REUTERS