Russian envoy invited to memorial events in Japan’s Nagasaki for first time in years

MOSCOW, August 9. /TASS/. Authorities in the Japanese city of Nagasaki invited Russia’s delegation to attend ceremonies commemorating the victims of the US nuclear bombing of the city for the first time in several years, Moscow’s Ambassador to Tokyo Nikolay Nozdryov told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

"At least this year, the Nagasaki authorities acted in an extremely transparent, open and respectful manner. Our participation in today’s ceremony was preceded by communication with Nagasaki city officials who had expressed a clear interest in our participation and sent us an invitation, which we accepted," the envoy noted.

"Unfortunately, a decision was made under Prime Minister Kishida several years ago to politicize these activities, which I believe was a mistake," Nozdryov added.

Nagasaki was the second Japanese city after Hiroshima to come under the US atomic bombings in August 1945. A nuclear bomb nicknamed Fat Man that detonated over the city was nearly twice as powerful as the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. Although inaccurate aiming and the landscape’s features slightly reduced the damage caused by the bomb’s explosion, the nuclear blast still led to devastating consequences: about 70,000 people were killed instantly and the city was almost wiped off the face of the Earth.