[ararar]

Taiwan? Looking at the board, seeing what's happening in the west, I would keep an eye on the level of loss the Russians are willing to endure before probable tactical nuke usage. Just before that point, I would look to China's northern border to see if they are about to roll north to undo the unequal Treaty of Aigun.

[ararar]

I meant that China would take back those parts of Manchuria and nearby lands it lost to Russia in 1860 the second Russia commits to total war on its western front. Taiwan is too difficult: crossing the ocean, powerful allies, entrenched defences. But Vladivostok and the Amur river region is defended by an overhyped, depleted, substandard, number-2-only-inside-Ukraine, army. It's just as good an offering to the people as Taiwan would be and a good legacy for Xi.

[nradov]

From Russia's perspective, tactical nukes aren't some kind of magic solution to reverse their battlefield losses. In land warfare, such weapons are most useful to knock out military bases and troop concentrations. But at this point the Ukrainian military is well dispersed and much of it is currently engaged in close combat with Russian forces. So a small nuke wouldn't kill many Ukrainian soldiers and there would be a high risk of fratricide. Most of those Russian military units are probably also not properly trained or equipped to fight on a nuclear battlefield; I suspect much of their CBRN gear has been stuck in storage since 1991.

Russia could force Ukraine to surrender by nuking population centers and civilian infrastructure. But that would come with such a high political and economic cost that I hope Putin will be rational enough not to go so far.