No Nuclear War
Yelena Osipova survived the Siege of Leningrad. The Siege, enforced by Nazi invaders, imposed gruesome cruelty on the inhabitants of what is now Saint Petersburg for two years, four months, two weeks and five days. Between September 1941 and January 1944 the people of that city were subjected to systematic starvation and deliberate destruction. It is estimated that 1.5 million Russians died in the city over this time and that of 1.4 million evacuees, a significant number perished due to starvation and bombardment. Yelena Osipova knows more than one thing about the barbarity of war.
That is why she joined thousands of other Russians who have taken to the streets in opposition to President Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine and his repeated nuclear threats. A video of Mrs Osipova, and her placards which say “No to Nuclear Weapons in the All the World”, was distributed on social media. The video shows the reaction of the Saint Petersburg police, who were on the scene in force to confiscate such banners and arrest those who oppose Putin’s war.
Those protesting across Russia, and the anti-war movement they are building, are part of an international movement for peace and against war. This movement exists in every corner of our planet: in every country, in every city and in every community. We are united at this moment with a clear message to President Putin: Stop your war on Ukraine, No to Nuclear War.
President Putin has not only broken international law to wage his war against Ukraine but he has shattered the ‘nuclear taboo’. In threatening “consequences greater than any you have faced in history” to those who might come to the aid of the Ukrainian people and putting Russia’s ‘deterrence’ [sic] on ‘special alert’, he has placed the question of possible nuclear war front-and-centre. He has exposed the central role that nuclear weapons play in world affairs and the relations between states - nuclear-armed or not - and he has reminded us all that when two nuclear-armed blocs confront one another, for whatever reason, the future of humanity is put in peril.
School history books and some misguided teachers tell us that nuclear weapons have only been ‘used’ twice: at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Daniel Ellsberg, former nuclear planner turned anti-nuclear and peace campaigner, begs to disagree:
“a gun is used when you point it at someone’s head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled”.
When there are two sides who have been pointing guns at each other for decades, when the guns get progressively bigger, when one side distributes smaller guns to their friends and then edges towards their foe we have the makings of a deadly situation. We are in such a deadly situation.
There can be no excuse for Putin’s illegal war or for his nuclear threats. He has chosen a course of action and he has chosen to make the threats all by himself. Yet the peace and anti-war movements have been warning of such risks for decades. We have been campaigning against nuclear weapons, against militarism, against NATO and the expansion of this nuclear-armed alliance. We have been arguing that security is for everyone or it is for none of us, for a nuclear-free Europe, for common security and the strengthening of international and transnational organisations to ensure such security.
We were ignored. Instead, the nuclear stockpiles have been maintained. The nuclear-armed alliance spread. All sides have indulged in breaches of international law, with horrendous consequences. Arms sales soar. An arms-race is underway. Security has not been ensured. Brinkmanship replaced diplomacy. Treaties and agreements were disregarded, sabotaged and put on the bonfire. Even more money was committed to war and destruction, whilst ordinary citizens suffered.
So our work starts again and it starts in the most dangerous of moments: when the prospect of nuclear war is on the agenda. It starts again when the people of Ukraine are under attack and when the nuclear-armed world has revealed itself. Our work is urgent and we now have hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens in our ranks. We will doubtless be joined by those in Ukraine who are witnessing the horrors of war first-hand and who, like Yelena Osipova, will oppose anything like it happening again.
Dialogue, discussion, debate and understanding are essential components of what comes next. Just as security cannot be for one side only, ‘guaranteed’ - or not - by nuclear weapons, security cannot be imposed. Neither can real and lasting peace be imposed. These things need to be built, through cooperation and democratic means, between peoples and across borders. This is why recognising the heroic efforts of anti-war opinion in Russia is vital. This is why links must be established and nurtured.
While starting this work, however, we must dedicate ourselves to the urgent tasks of opposing Putin’s war, preventing the spread of war and of alerting the world to the acute dangers presented by nuclear threats. If the dull hum of a nuclear warhead ever mutates to a deafening and life-ending roar of a nuclear explosion, humanity will be extinguished. We cannot and will not let this happen.