NORTHAMPTON — Commemorating the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine, a handful of activists with Massachusetts Peace Action stood outside U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern’s Northampton office on Monday afternoon to demand peace negotiations. This standout mirrored another held by the organization at the same time in Boston.

The group’s aim was for this to be the last time it commemorates the ongoing conflict in this way, hoping that meaningful negotiations for peace and an end to what they see as harmful escalations between Russia and Ukraine will mean an end to the conflict.

Among the group’s concerns are that more fighting will threaten Ukraine’s status as an independent country, halfhearted negotiations will only lead to stalled conflict that can erupt once more at any time and that escalations to the conflict hold the potential for nuclear violence — the threat of which is greater than ever before, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which recently set its symbolic “Doomsday Clock” to 89 seconds before midnight.

“We are out here to call for negotiations,” said John Berkowitz, one of the rally’s organizers who voiced concern that “there’s been too much bloodshed for three years in Ukraine.”

Berkowitz said he and other Massachusetts Peace Action activists are worried about the U.S. fueling further escalations to the conflict, such as by providing more missiles or by supporting the deployment of NATO troops. These actions of support could be dangerous, he said, not only because they risk prolonging the conflict and ending more lives, but because retaliation from Russia comes with the risk of nuclear disaster.

“The risk of nuclear war has never been greater, and Ukraine is one of the flash points,” he said.

Timmon Wallis of NuclearBan.US, a group dedicated to nuclear disarmament issues, was also present at the rally, holding a makeshift Doomsday Clock. Wallis said NuclearBan.US has become concerned with the war in Ukraine because of the potential posed for the conflict to escalate into nuclear war — especially with the “casual talk about using nuclear weapons” between global leaders surrounding this conflict.

“It’s scary,” he said, adding that he and others at NuclearBan.US believe the Ukraine war is “at a danger point” when it comes to the potential use of nuclear weaponry.

For these reasons, Berkowitz and his fellow organizers brought their array of colorful signs and their message to the doorstep of McGovern’s office, where they hoped to pressure him into “pushing harder” for productive peace negotiations.

“The only solution is a negotiated one,” said another activist, Martin Halpern.

McGovern’s Regional Manager, Koby Gardner-Levine, promised to pass the group’s messaging along to McGovern when he saw him.

One activist, Greenfield resident Paki Wieland, said the war seems like it has become less a matter of “who’s right and who’s wrong” and “more a matter of who’s left.”

“How much more death has to happen?” she asked.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.