Today we mark the Days of Great Sorrow – days of remembrance for the victims of the only nuclear weapons used in the war on 6 and 9 August 1945 by the United States over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is more important than ever to fight for a world without nuclear weapons, against war and nuclear weapons, for peace, confidence-building and nuclear disarmament.

One year ago, something happened that should never have happened.

We have learned that nuclear weapons will be deployed in the territory of Belarus. Exactly now, when the cruelest war since the Second World War is happening in Europe, when the international political situation is heated to the limit, Vladimir Putin announced his decision to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus and deployed it.

We were terrified to know that tactical nuclear weapons belonging to Russia had been deployed in Belarus in special storage facilities by July 1, 2023.

The Russians have been instructed the Belarusian military how to handle and use them.

I would say it the most terrifying news since the beginning of war in the February of the 2022 year. I cannot even say what is worse: if Belarus joins the war with its non-nuclear forces, or when Belarus formally does not enter the war, but is a nuclear weapons deployment site now.

In the second case, Belarus become both a participant and a hostage of the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail. A participant in the same way as when it became a co-aggressor in Russia’s war against Ukraine, as it is clear that it’s impossible to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus without Lukashenka’s consent.

A hostage, because such decision is a taboo for a non-nuclear nation, it’s a violation of all international agreements on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the conditions of the current confrontation between the East and the West, it is making Belarus a target of a pre-emptive strike. The confrontation here is taking another level: not regional, but global.

The black times have arrived. Nevertheless, we most emphatically protest against deployment of nuclear weapons in the territory of Belarus! Any weapon is created to be used, and today the threat is high as never before.

A few days ago, Major General Pavel Muraveiko, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces – First Deputy Minister of Defence, boasted that Belarus is ready to use nuclear weapons.

This is terrible.

We must make every effort to achieve nuclear disarmament – before it is too late, before nuclear weapons are used from the territory of Belarus.

We need a world without nuclear weapons.

The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whom we remember today, remind us all of what happens when nuclear weapons are ready to be used.

Someone is bound to use them.

We demand nuclear disarmament here and now.

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