Press Release, 21.12.2022

Photo: Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

The Yabloko faction submitted to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg a draft resolution on a legislative initiative of the St.Petersburg parliament for the State Duma on the responsibility for calls for the use of nuclear weapons. Alexander Shishlov, head of the Yabloko faction of the St.Petersburg parliament, stated this at a briefing for journalists on Wednesday, 21 December.

It is proposed to supplement the Criminal Code with a new Article 354.2 and to punish public calls by persons holding public office or the media to use nuclear weapons or promulgating its use by imprisonment for up to five years or a fine of up to 1 million roubles. For citizens, the responsibility is a fine of 100,000 – 300,000 roubles, or imprisonment for up to three years.

The head of the faction Alexander Shishlov noted that the rhetoric aimed at substantiating the possibility of using nuclear weapons had been heard increasingly more often in the media and speeches of officials. “Hidden and overt threats of the use of nuclear weapons make it difficult to find a peaceful solution to conflicts, contribute to inciting hatred and aggression in society,” Alexander Shishlov said.

According to Boris Vishnevsky, deputy head of the faction, calls for the use of nuclear weapons represented “not just irresponsibility and madness, but absolute cannibalism”.

The Yabloko deputies recall in the explanatory note to the draft that the doctrines allowing the first use of nuclear weapons, according to the Declaration on the Prevention of Nuclear Catastrophe adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1981, are incompatible with the laws of human morality.

In 1961, the Declaration on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear and Thermo-nuclear Weapons adopted by the UN General Assembly declared that the use of nuclear weapons was a war directed not only against an adversary or adversaries, but also against all mankind.

In the Agreement on Joint Measures with regard to Nuclear Weapons, ratified by the Resolution of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR No. 2093-1 dated 25 December, 1991, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation (RSFSR) and Ukraine confirmed the obligation not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Earlier, the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party announced the need to stop state propaganda of hatred and aggression in Russia, and introduce a legislative ban on the propaganda of nuclear war.

Today in Russia Article 354 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Public calls to unleash an aggressive war” is in effect. The maximum punishment for citizens for such acts is a fine of 300,000 roubles or a three year imprisonment term, and for persons holding public office the punishment envisages a fine of up to 500,000 roubles or up to five years in prison.