they wouldn't reduce it to irradiated rubble, they would just use small yield nukes on certain cities to force capitulation.

they need ukraine to be usable for annexation so expect at most kyiv and maybe 1 or 2 other cities to be lightly irradiated.

like after a few months it would be cleaned up.

the real damage is to the people who would be in the areas, they could have generational dna damage.

There's high chance that - if WMD is used in Ukraine - Russia will be hit hard - maybe first with conventional weapons, but if it will use nuclear weapons then, Russia will not be spared.

Irradiated rubble anyway.

But first by the wind direction, which goes directly to the east.

Contaminating the Ukraine will equally contaminate Russia. Moscow will not care, because Moscow will not be affected. But they are already preparing for the outrage of such stupidity.

Small yield is Hiroshima level destruction.

> they would just use small yield nukes on certain cities to force capitulation

The use of small yield tactical weapons would almost certainly escalate to full blown nuclear exchanges, it's a pandoras box that won't be closed.

MOABs have about the same destructive force as a tactical nuke. I expect they’d be used in response. And if the Rods from God were ever put into orbit, those as well. The Kremlin, government offices, factories, refineries, and oligarch estates can be obliterated without resorting to nuclear escalation.