Using a nuke against Ukrainian military forces would be a waste since they are now dispersed and dug in. Many of those forces are close to Russian forces so a nuclear strike would endanger their own troops.
If one thing is blindingly obvious lately, it is that Russia doesn't care about their own troops, only about winning. Peter Zeihan reminds us that historically Russia needs to lose about a half million men before they consider giving up on a war.
I do not believe that is their primary objective. Should any resources survive their onslaught they are just bonus material. They have already destroyed most of the factories train tracks and a good deal of the power generation. Russia have no ability currently to replace these things or to rebuild Ukraine which would be necessary in order to make use of the lands resources.
What would they target?
The remaining power, hospitals, the remaining agricultural factories to starve everyone. That alone would drive out most of the remaining people. I believe the primary objective is to secure Russia. That requires conquering all neighboring former Soviet countries and Ukraine is just in the way and has a nice bonus water port. Should they succeed in taking Ukraine this spring then I would expect Poland and/or Finland to be attacked at some point later on.
I don't think that's the objective. The objective imo is to take down a government and country that is challenging the Russian people see them as kin and yet their getting more democratic, removing (some) corruption and moving closer to economic partnership with the EU. Putin has to destroy a brighter future for the people of Ukraine to prevent his own populace seeing that future as a possibility for themselves.
There is a lot of truth in that as well. I'm sure its a major driving force for him and others around him. They are a vestigial legacy that will cease to exist in any meaningful manor once most of the dictatorships and faux democracies fall.
At this point, I'd say it seems to be an open question whether or how much it matters to him how much of that land is actually habitable.
It also seems like a) he views Ukraine as a somewhat rebellious province—daring to defy him, its rightful ruler—and b) he views Ukrainians as Russians, and furthermore believes that any Ukrainian who does not subscribe to this view is either traitorous or mentally ill...so I could see some fairly strong arguments for him deciding that they "deserve" to be nuked.
Honestly, in my view, the strongest argument for the position that Putin won't use nukes is simply that he hasn't done so already, despite many fairly significant setbacks in his attempted annexation of Ukraine.
I'm curious why you think that.
Everything seems to be pointing to that, I really hope you are right.
> regarding the use of nuclear weapons
If they do that they are done. Also I'm not sure if they still have any working nukes. The maintenance is too expensive and I've seen how the things really are in russian science and aerospace industry. I would say that I would be surprised if the situation with nuclear crap is better.
unfortunately so are a lot of other people to. If they know they are done if the do a limited exchange then there is not reason not to let the whole arsenal off and go out in blaze of glory and hope the first mover advantage means you took out enough of everyone else nuclear capacity that is survivable for you. hopefully some sane adult in the room is able to remind the would be button pusher that nuclear submarines exist as a second strike and will get them no matter how many icbm launch facilities they took out.
I don't think so. Normalcy bias is strong in the public right now and I don't blame people for wanting simple explanations for the recent events.
Regarding the balloons my unpopular opinion is that they may have received intel that the spy balloons are to condition the US into complacency and then replace the payload with something else using a later set of balloons. This would never make it into the news. Given that the military have recently been given pre-approval to take down anything that is deemed to be a threat that tells me there are more chess pieces in motion than we are aware of.
Regarding Russia I see a lot of comments about Russia never possibly using nukes. Adding to my unpopular opinions nobody can say that with confidence. Russia are approaching the end of their existence as a nation and are losing the numbers needed to fight their traditional methods of kinetic warfare and the only option left on the table is nukes. They just need an excuse. Existential threat has been the repeat narrative from the Kremlin and that is the legal language written into their laws regarding the use of nuclear weapons.
I can't speak for anyone else but I will do my best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.