Russia will not nuke a neighboring country.
If they didnāt do it during the end of 2022 crisis, or when Ukraine invaded the Russian soil (right after the doctrine update) that now it would make even less sense from a strategic point of view.
Unless they plan to obliterate the whole Ukraine, which will come with direct physical consequences for them.
Not to mention the loss of critical āalliesā like China, India and Turkey.
Thereās been so many setbacks and consequent nuclear saber ratting on the Russian side during this four years that, itās starting to be a redundant narrative.
Narratives of Putin being under pressure (or fearing to be hanged
) for nuclear use by mysterious people or forces from the deep state come from the same authors who associate Putin to literally god in Russia, with limitless powers. Which is contradictory by itself.
Or the same media that tell the story of how Putin is scared to lose consensus within the population, but at the same time heās not worried about the far bigger loss of consent that exploding nukes next to their door would have.
Then thereās the fact that the US will never accept it, Putin knows it.
Because the moment Russia uses a nuke without consequences, NK will invade SK and hit Japan, Pakistan will do the same with India (or viceversa).
China will invade Taiwan (which by itself is completely against the US economical interests, despite what someone at the WH is trying to sell) and potentially consider a military action against US assets in the pacific.
