The mayors of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki called on Vladimir Putin not to detonate his nuclear weapons in a joint letter last week.

Writing four days after Russias Russias invasion of Ukraine , Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui and his Nagasaki counterpart Tomihisa Taue said their cities were outraged by his conduct and pleaded for peaceful solutions instead.

The only two cities in the world to ever be targeted by atomic weapons in an armed conflict, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked in 1945 by the U.S. as part of World War II.

Their warning came four days before Russian troops attacked Europes largest nuclear power plant, Zaoporizhzhia.