Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent threats to use nuclear weapons over the war in Ukraine could put the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than ever before, an expert has warned.
The Doomsday Clock, organised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is a representation of how close humanity is to self-destruction.
The closer the minute hand is to midnight, the closer we are to a World War Three-style global catastrophe.
READ MORE: 'Frightened' Putin 'getting closer to launching nuclear strike' warns ex-RAF chief
It was debuted in 1947 at seven minutes to midnight and is reassessed in January each year.
From 2000 to now we have been just 100 seconds away from midnight – the nearest it has ever been.
The last reset came in January this year, just one month before Putin sent tanks over the border into Ukraine.
Since then, the tyrant's "special military operation" has faltered. He has become increasingly frustrated and, in turn, has made increasingly vocal nuclear threats.
Last Friday (September 30) he said the US had created a "precedent" by using nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of World War Two.
Before that he promised to use "all means" at his disposal to defend Russia, accused the West of "nuclear blackmail" and insisted "this is not a bluff".
Jonathan Gumz, a reader of modern history at the University of Birmingham, told Newsweek that the situation is more tense than ever before in chilling analysis.
He said: "It seems to me that the bar has been lowered for nuclear weapons use by Russia, not just in its talk about using such weapons, but in the idea that it could use tactical nuclear weapons within Ukraine, which it could get away with and avoid a strategic nuclear exchange with the United States.
"The abovementioned could move the clock forward if taken into account.
"Certainly, Russia will persist in the conflict over the winter, however shambolic their performance is, in the hopes of splitting the Western coalition due to energy shortages and the accompanying inflation that will be concentrated in Europe."
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Speaking yesterday (Thursday, October 6), US President Joe Biden made similar comments, likening the current climate to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
"For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they'd been going," he said.
"We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis."
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