From The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Four years ago, on 24 February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For Ukrainians, this week marks the start of a fifth year of war – of loss, displacement and destruction that words can barely describe. Take this opportunity to support nuclear disarmament as part of any peace plan for Ukraine.
The answer to the war in Ukraine cannot be to double down on nuclear weapons, but to take action to rule them out.
Nuclear danger in the Ukraine war
From the start, the war has been fought under explicit nuclear threats from Moscow. With very limited success, Russia tried to blackmail other countries from supporting Ukraine. Nuclear power plants like Zaporizhzhia have become front-line hostages and from the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, and ever since Vladimir Putin has wrapped the war in nuclear threats.
Earlier this month, the New START treaty – the last arms control agreement limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons – expired and for the first time in over 50 years, the world’s two largest arsenals are unconstrained. And at the same time, Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. From the point of view of people in Warsaw, Vilnius or Berlin, this turns their region into part of a nuclear chessboard again.
Leaders talk about more nukes – people don’t
Instead of treating nuclear weapons as an unacceptable risk, some European leaders are now openly debating getting more nuclear weapons or relying more heavily on them – as if that were normal.
Tell them, they’re wrong, by sharing our message and join our movement: “There are no right hands for the wrong weapons”.
Because opinion polls across Europe show most people do not want nuclear weapons and support steps towards disarmament and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Any peace plan for Ukraine must also be a peace plan for nuclear disarmament.
If we simply freeze the front line and leave nuclear threats untouched, we are accepting that this can happen again – in Ukraine, or somewhere else. We would simply be trusting Russia to not try to use nuclear blackmail again. That’s why we’re calling for a settlement that not only ends the fighting, but also rolls back nuclear risks and strengthens the norm against nuclear weapons. We must not allow this war to become the blueprint for future nuclear blackmail.
Four years on, the war in Ukraine continues. But so does resistance – in Ukraine, across Europe and around the world – because “Nuclear Weapons don’t facilitate peace – they produce war. There are no right hands for the wrong weapons”.
Please share this short video on social media to encourage people to join this call.