We're not quite running down into our Fallout-inspired bunkers just yet, but with Russia apparently testing its World War III sirens, everyone is looking to the various world leaders and whether their fingers are potentially hovering over their big red buttons.
While it briefly looked like things had quietened down in the aftermath of June 2025's 12-day war, President Donald Trump has been accused of pushing the Doomsday Clock even closer to midnight when the USA conducted Operation Epic Fury alongside Israel's Operation Roaring Lion. Iran reacted with strikes in the Persian Gulf and reports it might’ve knocked out an Amazon data center in the UAE.
Elsewhere, there are continued concerns about OpenAI's involvement in escalating conflicts, while military leaders are supposedly telling troops to prepare for 'armageddon'. There have been plenty of warnings about Vladimir Putin triggering World War III, and now, the Russian president is here to scare us all again.
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Putin already got 2026 off to a worrying start when he declared 'victory' for Russia, but with an arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles, the world is right to be afraid. Russia is taking its own precautions, with the country conducting a nationwide test of its early warning sirens.
The alarm rang out across Russia’s 11 time zones as its Emergencies Ministry told citizens to "remain calm and not panic." Designed to alert Russians to threats that are either man-made or natural, the system advises them to turn on TVs and radios for emergency guidance. In the city of Yekaterinburg, regular programming was paused to foreshadow the impending test with a message that read: "ATTENTION EVERYONE! THE PUBLIC ALERT SYSTEM IS BEING TESTED! PLEASE REMAIN CALM!"
Russia has particularly set its sights on the United Kingdom's chief of the British general staff after General Sir Roly Walker said: "We are on a collision course with a Russia that is on a war footing."
This didn't go unnoticed by Putin's chief television spokesperson and propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, who cautioned whether the UK is in a "position of strength." Delivering his own warning, Solovyov added: "We just need to understand the size of the British army. How many do they have now?"
Solovyov was joined by military expert Andrei Klintsevich, who said: "75,000, including those with fur hats [bearskins] and so on."
Implying that Russia could make light work of British forces, a defiant Solovyov maintained, "That's two months of our work, and it will be completely destroyed, using conventional methods."
He also laughed off Sir Keir Starmer's plans to send British troops to Ukraine to oversee a potential peace deal. Mocking recent cuts to defense in the UK, Solovyov concluded: "This army will be worn down in two months. Even strikes with conventional weapons and a large number of coffins going to Britain will raise the question: what are you idiots doing?
"There are no logistics to deliver them there, nor anywhere to place them...They will be immediately destroyed by precision strikes."
Meanwhile, President Trump has claimed the USA has a "virtually unlimited supply" of medium-grade munitions, boasting that wars can be fought 'forever' based on the kind of stockpiles the country has.
In a parting shot to Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he referred to the country's president as P.T. Barnum and suggested that former-President Joe Biden gave away too many of the USA's weapons.