He didn't use blitzkrieg tactics. Russia never does. This was the opposite of blitzkrieg doctrine. It seems probable that Putin anticipated the Ukrainian military laying down with nominal resistance like they did in Crimea. If we genuinely threaten to invade Russia he would absolutely drop a tactical nuke on a Polish. NATO troops being deployed in Ukraine seems so extremely remote a possibility, BUT if it did happen it would a "peacekeeping" type operation where they were merely securing Western Ukraine to protect evacuations and maybe enforcing a limited no fly zone over that part of the country. NATO does not want to engage in an actual war with Russia.
Why would Putin use nukes? This is a war of conquest. That would be the end of his own power, period. Makes zero sense.
You said troops would be attacking Russia. If we tried to conquer Russia he would definitely drop a nuke.
AH. You said he won't risk "losing Russia." I took that as in Troops pushing into Russia to force regime change there. That's my mistake.
I get it...for now we are on the sidelines but the fact that we are OVERTLY saying we are helping the Ukraine as are other NATO members is a massive shift.....in dealing with Putin.... Essentially the gloves are off.......which is good to see.. DD
Someone will take him out, that’s what happens to dictators. It might be the oligarchs or the military or the people. Just like he finally awoke the west and a trickle became a waterfall, the same will happen within Russia.
That would be the dumbest thing the Ukrainian’s could do. Even if they could reach Moscow(which I don’t think their artillery has the range) they would lose the support of the west. Killing innocent people would undermine their position and galvanize the Russian people against Ukrainians.
Like everything else in history you control people until you don't, History is filled with people who thought they controlled different groups of people until they turned on them and Putin is not immune from this. He does not have some great power.