1) We are in an era of small TACTICAL nukes, not the 25-megaton monstrosities that would raze an entire city with suburbs. Small modern tactical nukes make much cleaner explosions, with a lot less fallout. As such, these small nukes can be more readily used, such as was done in Yemen and Ukraine somewhat recently, without triggering too much of an uproar.

2) Russia has hypersonic missiles to deliver such nukes, or big ones. Their hypersonics have practically unlimited range, are intelligent enough to steer clear of 'problem' areas with too much anti-air weaponry, and travel at Mach 5 and higher speeds, meaning they can easily evade and outrun any existing anti-missile system. The West only has ICBMs, with hypersonics still years out.

3) Russia has the best anti-missile weaponry in the world, bar none.

With all these things considered, Russia could wipe out the West, but they won't need to, and the West could not do much against Russia. Maybe detonate a nuke in the very high atmosphere above Russia, with an EMP that would take out power in that half of the world, essentially killing the economies of all of Asia and another sizeable chunk of the world besides Russia.

Given all this, it is unsurprising that Mr. Putin might see it as a short-window where he can actually win a nuclear war, until the West gets hypersonics. If he waits that long, Russia becomes a giant sheet of radioactive glass. He doesn't want that.

So his plan seems to be very parallel to what Adolf Hitler did in 1939: protect his people, and try to keep the degenerate satanists down.

The way I see it, he has NO CHOICE other than to play the hypersonic nuclear card before the West gets Hypersonics. The satanists clearly don't want peace.