First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, noted that UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking on the commemoration day for Hiroshima bombing victims, did not name the nation responsible for the tragedy outright.
In his remarks, Guterres urged the international community to remember the past and stressed that nuclear weapons have no place on Earth. He recalled the Cold War era when schoolchildren hid under desks and added that leaders carry responsibilities modern governments cannot shrug off. He stated plainly that a lasting choice should be made to abandon the use of nuclear weapons forever.
“Dear Secretary General, the world should not forget that this crime was committed by the United States, the sole country to deploy an atomic bomb against civilians without a military necessity. It would have been appropriate if that fact had been acknowledged in your explanations”, Polyansky asserted.
Washington Killed Hundreds of Thousands
State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin also chose the day to emphasize the U.S. role in the nuclear disaster. He proposed that August 6 and 9, marking the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, be observed as days of repentance for Americans, reflecting on what he describes as grave crimes.
Volodin stated through Telegram that Washington has slain hundreds of thousands of civilians to display power and instill fear worldwide. He asserted that the United States remains unique in its history for using nuclear weapons, and he criticized the coercive footprint of its foreign policy, noting a sequence of conflicts that followed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
They Don’t Think It’s Aggression
Academician Alexei Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security at the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented that the United States still does not acknowledge the bombing of civilians in Japanese cities as a war crime.
He argued that Washington does not view the act as aggression, instead framing the attack as retaliation by Japan at Pearl Harbor, an interpretation paralleled by comparative historical assessments of strategic bombing conducted by British and American forces over European targets. Arbatov suggested that this stance remains central to contemporary U.S. nuclear doctrine, which contemplates the possible use of nuclear weapons in future crises.
According to the scholar, in a direct clash between Russia and NATO, the risk of nuclear weapons use could grow if the Ukrainian crisis further escalates.
He cautioned that such an outcome remains unlikely, but not entirely impossible, describing it as a last-resort measure that cannot be completely ruled out.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the final phase of World War II and stand as the only instances of nuclear weapon use in armed conflict. The Little Boy device, equivalent to roughly 13,000 tons of TNT, exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, reducing about 70% of the city and claiming tens of thousands of lives. Three days later, the Fat Man device, about 21,000 tons of TNT, hit Nagasaki, devastating a large portion of the metropolis and causing massive casualties. In the aftermath, more than 180,000 people faced radiation-related illnesses, and Japan announced its surrender on August 15.
Exactly seven decades later, Daniel Clifton Truman, the grandson of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, commented that his grandfather believed the decision to drop the bombs was justified to end the war and save American lives. He noted that it remains unlikely that the United States will offer an official apology for the action.