Originally Posted by
beardy
In my opinion, the use of a nuclear weapon is an admission of failure, military failure, international diplomatic failure and political failure. I'm not sure that Putin would see it like that....
I'd suggest that re-locating his forces away from Kyiv in the early days of the war was an admission of failure, as were the war crimes in the occupied regions, the terror strikes against civilian cities, and the mobilisation of 300,000 untrained civilians/reservists when his supposedly modern and well equipped army had failed to achieve his objectives. In fact, the entire conduct of Russia's war has been an admission of Putin's failure, but that hasn't stopped him from escalating previously and doubt it will do so this time.