>With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military and with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what point does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off?

I've been thinking about this possibility for a while:

* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.

* The weapon is a dud.

I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!