Japan Marks Hiroshima Anniversary Without Naming US, While Shaming Russia

Russia is not happy with Japan’s statements regarding the anniversary of the US military’s dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima at the end of WWII. Thursday marks the 81st anniversary of the bombing which obliterated the densely-populated industrial city.

The Kremlin is accusing Japanese officials of intentionally dropping any mention of just who dropped the nuke which ultimately killed some 140,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians.

The city’s mayor Kazumi Matsui at a ceremony held at the center of where the blast happened issued strong condemnation of nuclear weapons generally, but failed to identify that it was the United States behind it.

Tokyo and Washington have in recent years deepened their security ties, with an eye on China, and so Japanese leaders have long sought to avoid offending their powerful patron and ally. 

Astoundingly, not only did Mayor Matsui fail to mention the US and the B-29 Superfortress ‘Enola Gay’ bomber that actually dropped the bomb, a simple historical reality, but he went out of his way to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in his Thursday speech.

The speech focused on the “inhumanity of nuclear weapons” and how “use of force to pursue one’s own prosperity” must be condemned and abolished, but then he gratuitously invoked Russia while giving the stories of survivors who have since suffered debilitating illnesses:

Another woman, exposed to the bomb at age 3, suffered through the years from a series of illnesses, then leukemia at age 55. Having been diagnosed with A-bomb disease, she lived in constant fear. Where would it strike next?

A man who was 9, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has claimed the lives of many civilians, begs us to overcome our internal conflicts and embrace each other’s perspectives to build a world without violent conflict. He urges our youth, in particular, to begin by thinking deeply about their daily lives.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was in attendance at the ceremony, a first since entering office, and she too failed to identify the US as the country which dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese people. She merely called for “realistic and practical” efforts toward a world without nuclear weapons. Top officials from dozens of countries were present, including from Russia, the US, and Iran.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quick to highlight the glaring omission in statements to the press later the same day.

On the atomic bombing’s anniversary, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that Hiroshima’s Mayor failed to specify the United States as responsible for the city’s destruction through the atomic bomb that killed civilians. pic.twitter.com/wdyN6ecIoP

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“On the anniversary of the atomic bombing, Hiroshima’s mayor once again failed to mention the country responsible for the suffering of his city — the United States. Instead, he used the occasion to attack Russia over Ukraine,” Zakharova said.

“The crooked mirror of Western narratives distorts not only the reflection but also the consciousness of those who look into it,” she stressed.

She went to point out that the mayor “repeats this false mantra year after year, zombifying the Japanese with Russophobic incantations” – and noted that Russia has always remembered the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and appropriately presents the tragedy as an example of “unacceptable cruelty” by American forces. 

“Amid the suffering caused by Japanese aggression in the Far East, our people never forgot the victims of those two cities,” she concluded.

Russia’s TASS is busy highlighting the fact that the UN Chief, who addressed the ceremony too, also failed to so much as mention the United States:

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres once again did not mention that the United States was the country that carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in his message marking its 81st anniversary.

UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu traditionally read out the message.

The report went on: “In previous years, Guterres also never directly named the United States as the country that carried out the atomic bombings in similar messages commemorating the anniversaries of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”