The Russians' Fear of a Russian Tactical Nuclear Strike in Ukraine

I'm not interested in what the Russians claim because the Russians claim all kinds of things. Most Russian claims are fabricated anyway. What matters is what Putin wanted and what Putin wants. Did Putin want to get into a war with NATO? Absolutely not. So there's never been a point in this war when Putin would have seen it as advantageous to embark Russia on a war against NATO. And beyond that, if Putin uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine and does not achieve a decisive outcome, he risks seriously devaluing the only thing that continues to keep Russia on the stage as a great power. That makes his threshold for nuclear use very high and higher than I think some people have been talking about it

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