Putin is a moderate compared to many Russians. He goes and something worse comes. It all feels inveitable.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. Julia Ioffe said that Putin is the "moderating force" in his inner circle.

I think people have so much rage against Putin (understandably) that they want all facts to point to Putin being the sole problem and fantasize about his death and it solving the current situation. It is unfortunately not so simple.

Putin's death will solve problems, true. And it will happen almost inevitably. That doesn't mean things will become worse before becoming better.

Yes, for example Alexei Navalny. It is funny how West sees him as "opposition leader" (just because Putin tried to poison him), while the whole reason he opposes Putin is he thinks Putin is not radical and nationalist enough.

It goes back further than that. He was widely seen as the most viable opposition candidate in the 2018 presidential election, before being banned from running on trumped up charges.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/06/17/aleksei-navalnys...

I don't know much about his political views; Wikipedia confirms that he does advocate nationalism and controlled immigration, but also supports legalising same-sex marriage, and opposed the annexation of Crimea and Russian interventions in Syria. He certainly comes across as less hawkish than Putin based on that.

Yes, we do know how Russia operates - it has always been Russia's stated position that they won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons as first strike weapon if they have a direct conflict with any military powerful country or the NATO or the US. Thankfully, Russia is not a failed state and has a stable political system, with good political leadership, fully in control of its military. It is very unlikely that nuclear weapons will be used against Ukraine in any manner, unless more countries ally with Ukraine against Russia and their military actually participate in the war.

> Thankfully, Russia is not a failed state and has a stable political system

I assume you're joking, since this is not true, and obviously so. Where to start? Not having monopoly on use of force, as evidenced by actions of e.g. Chechen head?

Depends on the context you bring up "failed state" - I was talking from the view of a political system and leadership fully in control of all the institutions of governance. (For example, Pakistan is a failed state from that perspective as the Pakistan government lacks control over the military and the intelligence services, due to which Pakistan has often been under military rule).

It is definitely to Putin's credit that Russia has enjoyed political stability and unity for the last 2 decades, despite the lack of credible economic growth.

  >it has always been Russia's stated position that they won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons as first strike weapon...

Nope. Again this is the direct opposite of the truth. Russia has a stated "No First Strike" policy. As does the USA. As does China. As does NATO. As do, I beleive, India, Pakistan and every other nuclear armed nation. It's one of the reasons [alongside MAD] that we've, so far, managed to avoid a nuclear conflict.

Other commenters have hinted at Russia staging a false flag 'dirty bomb' incident, to justify making a nuclear response. That's an alarming thought. But I think it's equally alarming to see how we're being manipulated by the media into accepting some kind of limited nuclear conflict as inevitable and being pre-programmed to accept the "He hit me first!" jutification --especially as [see my other posts on what Putin actually did and didn't say] it seems like the Russian people are being similarly prepared for similar justification.

"No first strike" might refer to "big guns", ICBMs. It is well known that Russia also as a doctrine of "escalate to deescalate" where they reserve right to use small, tactical nukes if they start loosing conventional war, and the territorial integrity of Russia is at stake. I guess they realized that their conventional armed forces are shit, and wanted an ace up their sleeve.

https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russi...

   As per Russian nuclear doctrine, if Russia is attacked, if it faces an existential threat, it reserves the right to use ... first use nuclear weapons.

Source: https://youtu.be/DoOZF5hJmpo?t=2646 (view from 44m:06s).

> Nope. Again this is the direct opposite of the truth. Russia has a stated "No First Strike" policy.

My statement is based on what a high ranking indian military official (who has directly trained with Russian strategic forces) has publicly said on this matter - https://youtu.be/pNHUDDqTgdI?t=515 (see at 8m:34s).

Also came across this in an article from BBC ( https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63414324 ):

"There is a risk of Russia using nuclear weapons. Not against Ukraine, but against the West," said Dmitry Suslov, a member of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. "If a single American missile hits Russian military infrastructure inside Russia, we would make an historic jump towards nuclear Armageddon. According to official Russian nuclear doctrine, Russia would launch a strategic nuclear strike against the US and all Nato countries as soon as we witness the launch of Western missiles against our territory, no matter how they are armed. Then the whole planet will die."