We don’t want to ruin your festive cheer, but Vladimir Putin has warned that the threat of a nuclear war that will destroy the entirety of human civilization and planet Earth itself is on the rise. The Russian president held his annual end-of-year news conference Thursday morning in which he was questioned on the country’s economy, the conflict in Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s commitment to withdraw troops from Syria. But it’s his comments on nuclear war that will make people feel at least a little uneasy. “If, God forbid, something like that [nuclear war] were to happen, it would lead to the end of all civilization and maybe also the planet,” said Putin. “These are serious questions and it’s a real shame that there’s a tendency to underestimate them. It is a legitimate issue, and it is even growing.” He said Trump’s plan to withdraw from the U.S.-Russia Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty has made everyone less safe, adding: “We are essentially witnessing the breakdown of the international order of arms control.”
