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The world stage doesn’t really matter to Russia. It’s pretty clear that their propaganda and words are being aimed at Domestic audiences and allies. And unfortunately it’s working.

If they wanted to use tactical nukes they would have likely used it to take Kyiv. That they did not suggests they aren’t going to use them. Their goal now seems to be annexing/liberating parts of eastern Ukraine and bullying zelenski into neutrality.

I disagree. The "western world", that is Anglo-American centric world order, doesn't matter, but the Kremlin (not its ultra-nationalists calling for total war) knows it needs its ex-Soviet satelites plus China, India, etc.

This is about a new world order.

So far, Western economic sanctions have hastened the decline of the use of the US dollar as a means of exchange, especially among Russia, India, and China.

This transition has severe short-term disruption for Russia, but a wartime (sorry, "military exercise" time) sacrifice is much easier for its citizens to accept.

Not clear if this was the plan all along.

Do you have a numbers link for that claim?

I mean obviously India and China had to switch to other currencies to trade with Russia, cause Russia can not send or receive dollars and euros, but did it actually have any effect on India <-> China trade?

>So far, Western economic sanctions have hastened the decline of the use of the US dollar as a means of exchange, especially among Russia, India, and China.

Western economic sanctions literally prevent Russian financial accounts containing US dollars from being accessed, right?

Framing this as a problem for the dollars is odd; it's hard to put my finger on why.

All of the economic data shows the dollar is significantly weakened though, not just due to this, but money printing and more. Meanwhile, the Ruble has mostly recovered to prewar levels already https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD

That doesn't tell the whole story of course, but it does appear we are witnessing a larger decoupling from the US Petrodollar standard that has been dominant for decades. That wouldn't be possible if the dollar weren't already weak, I don't think.

How about looking at the longer term performance of both currencies in terms of Swiss Francs, on xe.com. It looks to me quite clearly the opposite of your view.

That doesn't tell us what precisely you are mistaken about, and clearly many people have been agreeing with you for years and years, but something is off here.

Dollars: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CHF&view=10Y

Rubles: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=CHF&view=10Y

Unless they are also planning to nuke the rest of the planet, there is no "victory" in that scenario.

The elimination of large chunks of the Ukrainian army in a single detonation could lead to the stated goal of the invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv.

It would be a calculated risk that the response from the West would be much like it has been so far. We're not talking "The Day After," but more like a really big bomb and 2,000 more where that came from. The response to the invasion has been fragmented at best, and it's not unreasonable to think that would continue, especially given a county that has demonstrated a willingness to use nuclear weapons in battle.

I'm not saying this is likely, but more speculating as to what series of events would cause the scenario to play out.

There's no massive army operating in one place. It's a bunch of units running around in the woods, hills, towns and cities. Their largest forces are probably near the largest Russian forces, so sure, if they're willing to cull their own.

Imagine that this tactical nuclear weapon from 70's fail and expolde over russia territory Or is dropped and do not not work.

Russia would need to make tests and reach readiness to use them, ideally with air superiority.

> The elimination of large chunks of the Ukrainian army in a single detonation could lead to the stated goal of the invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv.

A tactical nuke won't do that, though.

>the stated goal of the invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv.

Where was this stated as the goal of the invasion?

I don't think it's entirely clear that the US/Europe has the appetite to go to war over the use of a tactical nuke.

Has the US or NATO even threatened to go to war if Russia starts using tacnukes in Ukraine? I haven't seen any reports to suggest so, and I've been following the news on this war closely.

(The US has threatened more sanctions if Russia uses WMDs. That threat was in response to signs Russia was getting ready to use chemical weapons.)

Nuclear or chemical fallout that drifts into NATO countries could potentially warrant a response.

Here's one such article from a few weeks ago. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/03/23/if-russia-use...

Of course, we won't know for sure unless it happens (and let's hope it doesn't).

OK, but even when detonated high enough above the ground that no appreciable fallout is produced, nukes are quite destructive. In fact, for many kinds of targets, cities being one, the altitude that maximizes destruction is high enough.

My uneducated guess is that the primary goal of the latest rhetoric about the possible use of chemical weapons is intended to make this more clear. If "we" (not the US yet, but other countries that are nearer) are signalling a readyness to respond kinetically if chemicals are used, surely the message is that nuclear would trigger an even greater response.

Which military power has signaled a readiness to respond kinetically if chemicals are used?

The UK has stated that "all options are in the table" if there is a chemical attack. The implication to me is that a kinetic response would then be a possibility, since everything else is basically being done at this point..

Reference: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukraine-russi...

China might just drop their support of Russia if that happened.

If a tactical nuke is used, then it is proof that escalation to nuclear weapons does not imply the global nuclear holocaust that has been acting as a deterrent.

It eliminates the logic of not going to war.

Not that "logic" has any connection to "appetite" or that excuses require it.

I don't know, I'm quite worried. I don't think this is as cut and try as people make it out to be.

If Russia did launch a limited tactical strike on Ukraine, let's say super low-yield, honestly not much more than the MOABs we fired off in Iraq, is the USA really going to risk Berlin, or US cities getting vaporized to defend a non-NATO country?

I presume it would at least make a full embargo more likely?

Ukraine has also not yet attempted to hit Moscow (the city, not the ship) with missiles.

Once a nuclear bomb is used, a lot of gloves will come off, not just the Russian ones, and so far Ukraine appears to have a lot of extremely competent military partners and Russia has a reluctant Belarus.

What missiles capable of striking Moscow does Ukraine have? It's 500km from the closest point within Ukraine's borders. That's at the limit of long-range variants of Iskander, and Ukraine only has older stuff like Tochka.

Russia is so weakened I doubt NATO would want them to regain strength if they start dropping nukes.

> If Russia did launch a limited tactical strike on Ukraine, let's say super low-yield, honestly not much more than the MOABs we fired off in Iraq, is the USA really going to risk Berlin, or US cities getting vaporized to defend a non-NATO country?

The Baltics and Poland have already been pushing for NATO intervention because they want Russia checked because they don't want to be next; Article 5 is nice, but they’d rather stop Russia before it's on their land.

Nuking Ukraine, even a tiny little nuke, ratchets that up enormously and forces the US and Western European NATO powers to decide how to secure the eastern flank of the alliance.

Something can be a problem without it making sense to worry about it.

If Russia is using nukes, it becomes particularly absurd to continue to follow rules purported to appease them so they don't use nukes.

At best it's a transparently nonsensical excuse that conceals some other motivation.

When important people say they are against doing X, Y, or Z because of the risk of nuclear war, we can at least pretend they are serious as long as no nukes have been used yet.

But is there any other motivation they could have? There's one that seems very obvious to me, especially when I saw the reaction to Lindsey Graham's comments about regime change.

Do you mean the response to a Russian nuclear aggression would be nuclear?

It doesn't have to be nuclear. Any direct response from NATO would be a losing scenario for them.

Nuking Kyiv would probably kill more Russians and Belarusians than Ukrainians from the fallout.

> With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military and with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what point does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off?

I believe any use of nuclear weapons would end Russia as a state, tactical or otherwise. They know this, why is why they resort to their conventional (although brutal) warfare methods.

They have been threatening nuclear weapons since the start of the war for various reasons, and thats because nuclear weapons _only_ work as a threat.

> What does Russia do? Russia appears to have staked the farm on this operation. Can it afford anything less than total victory?

I haven't been tracking developments very closely, but a minimal set of objectives would be claiming land up to the Donetsk/Luhansk oblast boundaries under DPR/LPR flags, which can be framed as a victory. Nukes are unlikely compared to simply changing what "victory" means.

They've destroyed the dams blocking the canals supplying Crimea, established a land bridge between Crimea and the Donbass and cut off most of Ukraine's black sea access. That's enough for a "victory" in terms of domestic propaganda (especially if they have footage of captured Azov battalion soldiers), which might be why they gave up on Kiev and are manoeuvring to solidify their gains in the east.

This is a slightly unique situation as prevailing winds are from the west so fallout would just end up in Russia most of the time.

>With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military and with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what point does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off?

I've been thinking about this possibility for a while:

* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.

* The weapon is a dud.

I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!