UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky’s last-minute participation today in the Group of Seven (G7) summit overshadowed a rare chance to push world leaders to focus on nuclear abolition, atomic bomb survivors have said.

Mr Zelensky’s inclusion at the G7 gathering of the richest democracies — and his pursuit of more weapons, rather than a diplomatic pursuit to end the war — sends the wrong message, activists and victims said.

“Zelensky’s visit is not appropriate for Hiroshima, which is a peace-loving city,” said Etsuko Nakatani, an activist whose parents survived the Hiroshima atomic bombing in 1945.

Many Hiroshima residents hope that understanding the city’s tragic past will push leaders to “take up the abolition of nuclear weapons as an urgent political issue, not an ideal,” she said.

“But support for nuclear deterrence has persisted, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, seems to have justified it further.”

Yuta Takahashi, a Hiroshima-born activist, believes that Mr Zelensky’s visit threatens to send a message “that justifies the need for nuclear deterrence in order to save Ukraine from becoming another Hiroshima,” he said.

“It only makes us feel that Hiroshima was merely used by nuclear states to send a peace message.”

Kunihiko Sakuma, who was exposed as a baby to radiation from the bombing, said that G7 leaders should focus more on diplomatic efforts to end the war.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a coalition of non-governmental organisations that received a Nobel Peace Prize for working on the 2017 adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, said G7 leaders have failed to meaningfully acknowledge the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons or meet the demands of the bomb victims, called hibakusha, for concrete steps to eliminate nuclear weapons.

“Instead of rising to meet the urgency and weight of this moment, the G7’s inaction is an insult to the hibakusha, and the memory of those who died in Hiroshima,” the group said.

Meanwhile, there was confusion today over the status of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been under intense bombardment from the invading Russian forces recently.

Earlier today, Mr Zelensky said the city was “only in our hearts,” hours after Russia’s defence ministry reported that the Wagner private army, with the support of Russian troops, had seized the city in eastern Ukraine.

When asked by reporters if the city was in Ukraine’s hands, Zelensky said: “I think no, but you have to understand that there is nothing [there]. They’ve destroyed everything. There are no buildings. It’s a pity. It’s tragedy.

“But, for today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing on this place, so — just ground — and a lot of dead Russians,” he said.

Later, however, he said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.

“We are not throwing people [away] to die. People are the treasure. I clearly understand what is happening in Bakhmut. I cannot share with you the technical details of what is happening with our warriors.”