[E. Pluribus Unum]

Russia has always been a land power and never had a formidable Navy. Now they have neither and are showing up as a paper tiger depending on little North Korea for cannon fodder.

It's not as if the country with more nuclear weapons than any other nation on Earth would resort to them rather than be defeated and invaded.

[ansel12]

Invaded? The defeat would be of their invasion of their neighbor, it would be irrational to go nuclear to help their European invasions.

[pierrem15]

It can be defeated when it invades someone else. Ukraine is not an existential threat to Russia, despite the propaganda, though defeat there may be to Putin.

Even in NATO, Ukraine is not an existential threat because the notion that NATO would put together 3 million men for Barbarossa II is laughable.