There is salami slicing and there is just taking the whole sausage.
Before, it was hard for Russia to justify crossing the nuclear threshold for a bit of poking and prodding, but this is basically equivalent to an alpha strike against Russia’s nuclear triad.
And this is at an especially sensitive time for Russia. Since repeated test failures have already case serious doubt on the viability of its land based ICBMs. To attack both its airborne and sea based nuclear triad elements is getting dangerously close to looking like paving the war for systematic compromising of Russia’s entire nuclear delivery capability.
Putin has the capacity for restraint and climbing down when it’s in his interest. But as the actual Ukraine war itself proves, he is no pussy and will step up if you push him far enough, and he is really not someone you want to play nuclear chicken with.
I am not talking about crossing the line to use nuclear weapons, I am deliberately writing about Russia's way of conducting this war. Since 2022, they have been dragging their feet in this war, suffering setbacks that are completely alienating their respective military advantages over NATO. In reality, Ukraine is being used by NATO precisely to compromise Russian military capabilities, this attack today is yet another proof of this Western military policy.
The Russians still think that they can contain Ukraine militarily without compromising their own military capabilities in a limited open war, when in reality, Ukraine is so motivated enough to lead to Russia's defeat in the war that they will do everything to make this possible, NATO is more than motivated to make this a reality too.
Dude, Ukraine has already attacked Murmansk. It has attacked Russian early warning radars. It has previously attacked the strategic bomber base in Engels. Now this attack again. All of this should have been a warning to the Russians that they can no longer contain this war, either they must completely finish off Ukraine soon, or they will end up compromising their most critical military capabilities vis-à-vis NATO.
See, this is not the use of nuclear weapons. It is Russian military strategy in Ukraine. Unless the Russians change their approach, we will see this happen again and again, and the next time it could be an even more devastating attack considering Ukraine's growing drone strike capabilities against Russia.
