Today, on January 29, events are taking place in many countries around the world on the occasion of the International Day of Mobilization against the Threat of Nuclear War, UNN reports.
It was on January 29, 1985, that a Declaration was opened for signature in India, the key purpose of which was to call for an end to the nuclear arms race, the reduction and subsequent gradual elimination of nuclear arsenals in the world, and the elimination of the threat of nuclear war.
The first signatories to the Declaration were India, Sweden, Argentina, Mexico, Tanzania, and Greece.
Prior to that, in 1963, a treaty was signed that prohibited nuclear weapons testing not only in the atmosphere of our planet, but also underwater and in space. The signatories to this treaty undertook to prohibit and prevent any explosions that would result in radioactive fallout beyond the borders of the state conducting the test.
After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine also had nuclear weapons on its territory. However, after signing the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, Ukraine gave it up in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and unleashed a war in Donbas, thus violating the Budapest Memorandum. However, the United States and the United Kingdom did not provide any specific assistance to Ukraine at that time.
Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine has raised the issue of the use of nuclear weapons and the prospect of nuclear war quite sharply. From the Russian side, both so-called experts and some political figures periodically call for a strike on Ukraine, at least with tactical nuclear weapons.
This danger is also recognized at the global level.
"The drums of nuclear war are beating again; distrust and disagreement are growing. The nuclear shadow that hung over us during the Cold War is once again upon us," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier.