Hey look, it's the Russian State media. I love this picture

The problem is Russia has the very real capability of really screwing up a good chunk of the world before they get wiped off the map. It's kind of scary if im being honest.

Nato will write a sternly worded letter. Biden will SLAM putin for it. The EU will try to pass chat control.

I think even China and India would sever any remaining ties to russia if russia uses a nuke.

it would be over for everyone

We don’t need to nuke them even, we can just use conventional munitions to fuck up every military installation they have to rubble.

And chuck a few Tomahawks at Kremlin to be sure

This would be more like EVERYBODY vs Russia.

I do not share your confidence about that.

Countries with nuclear weapons include China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and possibly Iran. And while I don't think any of them want a nuclear war, if a nuclear war breaks out, I can imagine three or four of them siding with Russia.

China might side with Russia simply because they're sick of the US trying to hem them in militarily through the "island chain" strategy. The US has the entire coast of China surrounded by military bases, which could be used to cut off China's trade routes, which is an existential threat to China because their economy is so dependent on exports.

North Korea has a historical beef with the US, and Russia helped North Korea survive through a period when the US tried to starve them.

India and Pakistan have a long-running dispute over Kashmir, and if India backs the US, it's possibly Pakistan will back Russia just to oppose India.

And Russia and Iran have been solid military and economic allies for a while now, working together in recent conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Unless the nuclear fallout is proven to effect a NATO ally and trigger Article 5, no one would give a shit if Russia nuked itself on its own territory. And no one other than the US can afford to unleash all of their their nuclear arsenal, costing billions of dollars and their only defense deterrence, in one go to light the powder keg and be left without nukes to defend themselves.

However, you are correct, Russia would cease to exist if they retaliated disproportionately and a single molecule of NATO territory was effected as a result.

The sound of rusty sabres being rattled.

Source is relevant.

Tankies: is this western imperialism?

It's worse than that. Russia knows they can never use nukes preemptively, it's why they have their policy.

Russia is one of the most centralized countries in the world, everything revolves around Moscow, all political and economic power, all administration, without Moscow they know Russia is dead.

The whole point of a nuke is that it eats cities, their paranoia that Moscow would be hit during the cold War was extreme, they put incredible amounts of money into air and missile defenses and demanded carve outs to the abm treaties specifically for Moscow.

Because Russia isn't a country, it's an empire ruled from Moscow, and it Moscow was destroyed it would instantly cease to be a country.

Basically, if things reached a point where Moscow's control over the rest of Russia was at risk, that's when you'd see them start to negotiate.

Putin has no endgame.

There is no timeline where he can step down and live peacefully.

His one in a million is to conquer enough of Ukraine and somehow be allowed to keep it - but that’s not happening unless Donald wins the election.

True. Dictators like Putin don't usually retire, alive at least and the end is not usually pretty, so he hangs on, and on.

Dude, you're making yourself more important than you actually are. No one cares about you.

Seriously. The West keeps legit forgetting the whole thing is even going on, and then waking up and sending $50 billion and then getting distracted again.

The bravery of the Ukrainians and the 20:1 outmatchedness of the Russians in total industrial/technological capacity are responsible for the failure of the invasion. Not any kind of urgent priority or strong level of care on the Western side in any location west of Poland.