Due to the Kremlin’s blatant nuclear threats, the position of the hands was changed for the first time in three years.
In the face of blatant nuclear threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the hands of the so-called “doomsday clock” have advanced to 90 seconds to midnight. Researchers at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have changed the symbolic time to the end of the earth from 100 seconds for the first time in three years.
“Nuclear risks have increased significantly over the past year, largely due to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” said Professor Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland in Washington, DC. Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to prevent the US and its NATO allies from intervening in the Ukraine war. “It’s not a bluff,” said Fetter.
The symbolic status of the watch is communicated once a year. In 2018 and 2019, the clock was two minutes to noon. In 2020, the clock was symbolically moved forward to 100 seconds before midnight for the first time. The risk of humanity becoming extinct as a result of nuclear war or climate change is greater than at any time since the clock was invented in 1947.
Schallenberg: “Extremely dangerous nuclear threats”
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) had already referred to the danger of a nuclear escalation on Sunday, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: “Threats with nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous “, Schallenberg said, according to the broadcast. “Not only are they completely morally unacceptable, but they also lower the inhibition threshold for others and clearly violate international law. There is no alternative to nuclear disarmament, because as long as these terrible weapons exist, they will be a threat to all of us. We must destroy them before they destroy us.”
(APA/dpa)