TOKYO, August 6. /TASS/. Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui criticized Russia and its actions in Ukraine during a memorial ceremony marking the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing but did not name the United States as the country that dropped the bomb on the city.

Matsui began his speech by accusing Russia of allegedly "using nuclear weapons as a tool of intimidation" and criticizing its actions in Ukraine. At first, he did not name Russia, referring to it as a "major power," but later directly mentioned the country and the conflict in Ukraine.

At the same time, as in previous years, the Hiroshima mayor never said that the United States had carried out the 1945 atomic bombing. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also made no mention of the US in her address. She pledged that Japan would continue doing everything possible to advance nuclear disarmament and create a world without nuclear weapons. "We must not stop moving along this path," she stressed. Matsui likewise called for nuclear disarmament and expressed hope that the world would never see a third city suffer an atomic bombing.

Japanese officials generally do not emphasize in public speeches that the United States carried out the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In previous years, Japanese prime ministers and the mayors of both cities also refrained from directly naming the US in their remarks at ceremonies commemorating the tragedy. However, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum presents comprehensive information about the atomic bombings of 1945. Japanese school and university textbooks cover their history in detail as well.

The United States carried out the atomic bombings of the two cities at the very end of World War II, with the officially stated aim of accelerating Japan’s surrender. They remain the only instances of nuclear weapons being used in warfare in human history. According to various estimates, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed between 70,000 and 100,000 people on the day of the explosion. By the end of 1945, the death toll had risen to 140,000 as people died in hospitals from their injuries and radiation exposure. The total number of victims of the bombing now exceeds 350,000.

The United States still does not acknowledge moral responsibility for the atomic bombings, justifying its actions as a "military necessity." Former President Joe Biden, who attended the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May 2023, did not apologize for the nuclear attacks. Neither did Barack Obama, who in 2016 became the first sitting US president to visit the memorial. US President Donald Trump has not visited the memorials in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, although the two Japanese cities invited him both during his first presidential term and after his return to the White House.