ICAN: Russia can not come back with nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons have not been used in war since the first bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945. Since then, the world has lived with the threat that it could be used again, with great destruction as a result.

Now the threat has become clearer than in many years.

Beatrice Fihn, Secretary General of the International Campaign against Nuclear Weapons, which received the Nobel Prize in 2017 for its work, says that there is a normalization of the use of nuclear weapons in the world.

This is especially clear in the discussions about tactical nuclear weapons, ie those that can be used in ordinary weapon systems on the battlefield.

- There is an almost legitimacy of using "small nuclear weapons", tactical nuclear weapons.

Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are between ten kilotons and 100 kilotons.

The Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons.

I think it's incredibly risky to talk about these as small useful nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons, regardless of size.

"Will there be a Russia that wants to remove the sanctions"

ICAN believes that what we now see in the rhetoric surrounding the war in Ukraine is a clear and concrete example of the nuclear threat we have lived under since the Second World War, but also an example that the deterrence theory is naive, says Beatrice Fihn.

- Putin does not use nuclear weapons to protect himself but to invade an independent country.

There are only two conclusions to be drawn from this.

Either all countries must have nuclear weapons or we must disarm Russia.

Is it possible to disarm Russia?

- We have seen countries get rid of nuclear weapons in the event of major changes and above all as a strategy to shift from being a pariah state to a democracy.

I think we have a real chance now that we have such enormous sanctions against Russia.

There will be a Russia that wants to remove these sanctions and then we must be clear that the requirement is to negotiate disarmament.

Click on the clip to hear more from ICAN's disarmament work and see more about nuclear weapons in the Foreign Office: The Peace Bomb on SVT Play from 7.30 pm or 10 pm on SVT2.