Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky has slammed Japan’s prime minister over a speech to the US Congress this week outlining the purported threats to the world presented by America’s adversaries.
“As I often say, Ukraine of today may be the East Asia of tomorrow,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during his visit to Washington Thursday. “Furthermore, Russia continues to threaten the use of nuclear weapons, which has contributed to worldwide concern that yet another catastrophe by nuclear weapon use is a real possibility. In this reality, close coordination between Japan and the US is required more than ever to ensure that the deterrence our alliance provides remains credible and resilient,” Kishida added.
“What a shame and disgrace,” Polyansky wrote, responding to an X post which pointed out that Kishida was “talking about the danger of Russia repeating a nuclear weapons catastrophe while standing in the US Congress – the only country to use nukes – ON JAPAN.” That this “has got to be the highest level of gaslighting, self-deceit, and lackeyism all at once,” the post suggested.
Kishida’s comments are all the more peculiar given the fact that the prime minister is a native of Hiroshima – which along with Nagasaki was one of two Japanese cities targeted for destruction in August 1945 during the closing days of World War II. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 214,000 people, most of them civilians, with tens of thousands more dying early deaths in the years that followed due to leukemia, cancers, and other side effects from radiation.
Japanese officials failed to see the irony of the prime minister’s remarks, with Deputy UN rRepresentative from Japan Shino Mitsuko bringing up “Japan’s clear position on the repeated nuclear rhetoric by Russia” a second time on Friday.
“As the only country that has ever suffered atomic bombings during war, Japan will never accept Russia’s nuclear threats, let alone any use of nuclear weapons. The catastrophes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated,” Mitsuko said, without mentioning who was responsible for these "catastrophes."
Unlike the nuclear doctrine of the United States, outlined in the most recent Nuclear Posture Review from 2022, which allows Washington to use nukes on a preemptive basis, and even against “non-nuclear weapon states,” Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for nuclear arms to be deployed only in the event of an enemy attack involving the use of weapons of mass destruction, or conventional aggression so severe that it threatens the state’s survival.
The US and its allies have resorted to a traditional WMD gaslighting strategy in Ukraine, accusing Russia of dangerous “nuclear rhetoric” while themselves engaging in military bioweapons research at labs dotting Ukraine, and looking the other way when it comes to suspected Ukrainian chemical weapons use, and alleged research into a radioactive dirty bomb.