Doomsday Clock reset imminent amid Israel-Hamas war and threats from Iran, North Korea and Russias unhinged Putin

Is the end near?Our planet is the closest it has ever been to a global nuclear holocaust, members of the scientific community have warned over the past two years.Sometime this month, they will announce whether we have moved steps closer to annihilation.Each year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists sets a “Doomsday Clock,” a def-con-eqsue metaphor that determines how close existing world conflicts are pushing Earth to the brink of no return.For two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024 — following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amid the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas and the latter’s allies — the clock has been set at just 90 seconds to midnight.

For context, it clocked in at seven minutes to midnight in 1963 following the near-catastrophic Cuban Missile Crisis.In Eastern Europe, there aren’t many assurances that headstrong Russia is seeking alternatives to a nuclear strike.

The nation’s leader, Vladimir Putin, moved nuclear arms into nearby Belarus as a thinly veiled threat to end the Ukraine conflict in 2023.In November, he doubled down on threats to both that country and the U.S.

The war, during which Russia has begun allying with North Korean troops, has become much of a “stalemate,” Dr.Haydn Belfield, a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, told the Daily Mail.However, he warned that the worst could be coming.“We are probably closer to nuclear war than at any point in the last 40 years,” Belfield asserted.“Putin might seek to break with nuclear escalation and brinksmanship,” he told The Daily Mail, adding that the Russian leader may be “even more unhinged” than his predecessors.

Rachel Bronson, CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, previously told The Post how hellbent the Russians are on capturing Ukraine.“There is a trend toward seemingly making [Russia’s nuclear arsenal] more usable — that is very, very similar to what we saw in the’ ’40s, ’50s and early ’60s … ...