Said it before, back a bear into a corner and he'll turn on you.
Putin uses the rat analogy himself…
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/08/vladimir-putin-backs-down-russia-ukraine/
If it's a choice of going nuclear and saving his own skin or getting an icepic in his ear I have no doubt what Putin will do.
I don’t think Putin has a death wish and I don’t think it’s as simple as him pressing a big red launch button. I could still see him using a smaller battlefield warhead against Ukraine, or escalate elsewhere in the unlikely event Russia became directly under heavy attack.
And to suggest his nuclear capability has gone away due to poor maintenance..... FFS.
Diminished maybe, not gone away. Regardless, even 1/4 fully functional is still more than enough.
He wouldn't drop a nuke on the States, he'd send them our way and the Amercans would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Disagree, attacking a NATO member, in this case the UK, would see a response from us (the alpha-male military cosplayers on Russian TV like to beat their chests about bombing us*, but we still have enough warheads to destroy Russia and the people who need to know that do know that) and the alliance, including the US. The US can’t show significant weakness because China is watching very closely…
*this isn’t a new thing. Russia is a country that, similar to Iran, has prominent figures that believe a conspiracy theory that the UK is the brains behind the nefarious going’s on in the world, the US is just our muscle… if only our political class had half the competence to accomplish anything on that scale!
On one hand they love to call us a small and insignificant island, whilst also claiming we’re behind almost any plot and action that negatively impacts on Russia, it’s been pretty funny seeing this written about us over the years. We, of course, use this to our advantage, such as in NATO when the RN sailed through the waters close to Crimea that sent a message in a way a French vessel wouldn’t.
The average Russian seems to quite like the UK, our soft power of James Bond and Keep Calm goes a long way, Union Jacks are common and everyone wants to learn English and visit London, it’s a shame as Russians should not be our enemy, but Putin wants his sphere of influence that certainly doesn’t want him.