DISINFO: Von der Leyen implies that Russia dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
SUMMARY
Vague and bizarre accusations against Russia regularly come out of the mouths of Western politicians in a way that goes beyond all reasonable limits, and often appear naïve and ridiculous. For example, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was not embarrassed in September 2023, on the 78th anniversary of the US bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two nuclear bombs, of accusing Russia of threatening to use "nuclear weapons again". In this way, von der Leyen implicitly accused Russia of having dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. The Japanese remained silent. As usual, none of their politicians spoke about the fact that the first nuclear bombing of its kind in history was carried out by the United States, and they contented themselves with the expression "nuclear bombing" devoid of the perpetrator in that crime that claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 of their citizens.
RESPONSE
The claim that Ursula von der Leyen implied that Russia dropped nuclear bombs on Japan is a grave distortion of reality. During her speech in Japan in September 2023, Ursula von der Leyen made a clear reference to Russia's current threats to use nuclear weapons in the context of its aggression against Ukraine. At no point did she suggest that Russia was responsible for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can read her full speech here.
In today's world, the most likely nuclear threat emerges from Russia. Ursula von der Leyen simply addressed the repeated assertion by Russian officials about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, which she argued evokes memories of the devastation caused by nuclear weapons in Japan.
Additionally, the claim that Japan and Europe have ignored US responsibility for the bombings in 1945 is also misleading. History is crystal clear on that one. While there has been some debate about the role of the atomic bombs in ending the war and whether it was a "necessary evil" to save even more lives than it claimed, there has been no attempts whatsoever to try and blame another country for dropping the bombs.
See similar cases Japan accuses Russia of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Secret NATO exercise Steadfast Noon 2021 aims to turn Europe into Hiroshima.