A day after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a grassroots group of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors pushing for a nuclear weapons ban, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Saturday reiterated his view that nuclear deterrence is needed in an increasingly fraught security environment.

“I want to make sure that something like (the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombings) never happens again,” Ishiba said in response to a question about nuclear abolition, during a debate with other party leaders in the run-up to the Oct. 27 Lower House election.

But, pointing to the Russian invasion of Ukraine — which gave up its nuclear weapons after the dissolution of the Soviet Union — he stressed the importance of the US nuclear umbrella for Japan’s security.