[beardyw]

"I view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that Putin would accept "Vietnam" without first going nuclear, because it would almost certainly result in him being overthrown and jailed or killed."

Whereas the affects of nuclear on his own country will make him a hero? Sorry, it's just lose-lose.

[Seanambers]

One of the things that is being shattered in Ukraine right now besides the Russian Army is the Russian self image. Now that's a powerful thing to lose. Russians have believed that they were a strong important country, now, the truth is here and it turns out they are weak and unimportant. Unable to project any sort of believable conventional power onto the world.

The soviet union was obviously strong militarily with wast sphere of influence, but Russia has not filled its shoes at all.

All the years of corruption and greed shows.

In that backlight, using tactical nuclear weapons will at least let the regime assert some kind of might.

One can wonder if Putin at all has or had a true image of Russian military capability.

[bmitc]

> One can wonder if Putin at all has or had a true image of Russian military capability.

It is highly unlikely he has. But in the end, it is his own fault for creating that environment.

[sgt101]

What Putin accepts or not is irrelevant - it's what the Russian state will accept that counts.

Putin is dead in 5-15 years no matter what. Russia should,could,will have 100's of years left if it starts to act 1/2 way sensibly.

[mrjin]

So why risk getting jailed or even killed instead of just waiting for a couple of years? And you don't have to clean up someone else's mass neither.

[regularfry]

Because anyone in a position to control the succession today will know that they may only have a short time to do it in before they personally lose the chance. The more people fall out of windows, the more they might feel the need to press the issue.