My bet several weeks before he invaded was that he'd deploy a tactical nuke against the Ukranian military (not necessarily against civilians causing mass casual

My bet several weeks before he invaded was that he'd deploy a tactical nuke against the Ukranian military (not necessarily against civilians causing mass casualty) to remove the ability of the West to call his bluff on using nukes and hence affect their calculus. This has the effect of making it crystal clear to NATO that they absolutely cannot put boots on the ground in Ukraine under any circumstances, and secondly it is a massive psychological blow to the Ukranian people themselves. The pundits and talking heads are always saying "I don't get his end-game here, he can't hold these people down, they will resist!" and my suspicion has been he may attempt to frighten the shit out of them into obeying. The other effect such a move may be intended to have is change the calculus of any further non-NATO former soviet countries he may try to go into next if he is successful in Ukraine, as he could essentially win without having to fight potentially. My guess would be that if he deployed tactical nukes in Ukraine in some capacity NATO would not respond by launching a retaliatory nuclear attack as that would be MAD. Rather they would take the other nuclear option of completely cutting 100% of the banks out of SWIFT and freezing all oil and gas exports in an attempt to completely cripple Russia while eating the pain of those sanctions on their own territories, as I think the people would support it. Secondly I think it would be enough to galvanise millions of Russians to take to the streets and march against Putin to end his reign. This is the scenario I'm currently betting on playing out.