KGB Lt.Col. Vladimir Putin, 1980:
delta7: "Not a good idea to keep poking the Bear.
Vlad has shown much restraint, that may change when his citizens start calling for a pound of flesh."
The Duke: "Agreed ... I doubt that Vlad imagines the flag of his enemies as being anything other than red, white and blue."
No doubt what Vlad the Invader wants is to restore the glory days of his youth -- as a KGB Lt.Col. in the Old Soviet Empire -- by igniting Cold War II.
And, of course, one essential element of Cold War I was the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation.
That's what gave the economically miserable USSR its global significance and reach.
Cold War I ended around 1991 after 45+ years when the Old Soviet Union collapsed -- due to the effects of a 10 yearlong losing war in Afghanistan, and Ronald Reagan & Poppy Bush's policy of Peace Through Strength.
In 2005 Ex-KGB agent Putin said, "The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century."
Essential to Russia restoring Old Soviet style global influence and regional hegemony, is a credible threat of nuclear annihilation -- which Putin is working on but has so far failed to make much progress.
For one thing, even Putin's closest friends, like China and India, keep telling him, "don't do it."
So, Putin needs his threat of nuclear war to seem real, but if he ever actually starts throwing his nukes around, it will not end well for Russia as a country, and Russians as a people.
That is Vlad's problem now.
It's one reason why he wants to make the Ukraine war about much more than just a few square miles in the Donbas.