A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Such a statement made the US Secretary of State.

“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is a brazen violation of international law, including the United Nations Charter, and it’s also contrary to the rules-based international order that we all seek to uphold. But critically, and it’s directly relevant to what brings us together this month for the NPT Review Conference, its actions are also contrary to the assurances that it provided to Ukraine in 1994 in the so-called Budapest Memorandum, assurances of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence that were vital to giving Ukraine the confidence to give up the nuclear weapons it inherited when the Soviet Union dissolved and that were left on its territory.

So what message does this send to any country around the world that may think that it needs to have nuclear weapons to protect, to defend, to deter aggression against its sovereignty and independence? The worst possible message. And so it’s directly relevant to what’s going on here this month at the United Nations.

Most recently, we saw Russia’s aggression with its seizure of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such plant in all of Europe. Russia is now using the plant as a military base to fire at Ukrainians, knowing that they can’t and won’t shoot back because they might accidentally strike a nuclear – a reactor or highly radioactive waste in storage. That brings the notion of having a human shield to an entirely different and horrific level.

The United States believes that all nuclear-armed states have a duty to act responsibly. We’ve chosen to act with restraint and avoid actions that could unintentionally add to nuclear tensions – for example, by forgoing previously scheduled ICBM tests and not raising the alert status of our nuclear forces in response to Russian saber-rattling. There is no place in our world – no place in our world – for nuclear deterrence based on coercion, intimidation, or blackmail. We have to stand together in rejecting this”, - Antony Blinken.