We hope so but I think it's just positioning. He's acting like a guy who's won his goal, has the treasure, and is packing up operations. As I say, if Ukraine continues to fight (as he knows they will) Putin then declares them the aggressors and declares war. That's my guess but I'm rarely sober.

@rainmanjr And then, after declaring war, what? So basically, he's lost a 'war' before it's even begun.

@JackPedigo Then he's out from under the sanctions (he will argue) because he's no longer the aggressor and THAT conflict is over. Has he declared it a war? I don't recall it. I don't see POTUS Joe, or NATO, buying that but it becomes a war of words, as well. It becomes a matter for INTERPOL, I suppose. I think this scenario works for Vlad because INTERPOL is a bunch of wussies.

@rainmanjr With Putti Put everything is changing and he just keeps digging the hole he's in even deeper. Tens of thousands fleeing Russia have settled in Kyrgyzstan which was a poor area but with all then new people, some with money, things are looking up. There seems to be a people, brain and money drain from Russia and it won't stop until the dictator is gone. No one will ever trust him again. Hopefully, the same is happening to our own wanna be dictator.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to say that I don't analogize the situations. They are different, yes, but that doesn't matter to the fact that we used them and established they are an acceptable tool of war. Took a while for someone to walk through that door but here he is; in time for dinner. The only analogy is that we used them to end a conflict which we didn't start (supposedly) on a nation that wouldn't stop attacking. Those will be Russia 's claims of Ukraine if they don't observe a cease fire and end of hostilities.
FWIW, I agree with @Puff that the nuke wouldn't be used on Ukraine. Possibly as a "test," on some island like Bikini Knoll, just to further scare Ukraine into agreeing to stop aggression's and recognize the new Russian border. If they do POTUS Joe would have no alternative but to also stand down. So the fate of humanity may lie with Zelenskyy unless The U.N. can convince Putin his argument has no legitimacy. I suppose that could happen. If, instead, they treat the legitimacy as an open question then they are granting approval if Putin wins.
Either way will be interesting.

Yes it is but I think this one's easier. Putin's right in bringing up our setting of precedent and it does weaken our outrage. The consequences of that evil might really haunt us.

@rainmanjr the circumstances we used them in (WW II) were quite different. We did not use them in Europe where the effect would have endangered Allie’s as well as the enemy. We dropped them on an island that would have had a huge cost to human life had we done a conventional invasion. And being the first use of this technology, the full extent of their use was not totally known (the after kill of radiation exposure). In my mind, there is no comparison. And Russia, with their defective nuclear plant in Chernobyl, has already poisoned parts of Ukraine, Belorussian and many other countries with radioactive fallout. Only a crazy man would want to repeat that.

@Barnie2years Or a desperate one. Our 2nd drop was, admittedly, worse but neither city had military value. They were civilians so the acts were immoral and we should have considered the precedent. WTF are we to warn others what they can do? This is part of why I'm not big on humanity to begin with.

@rainmanjr we (the US) have never played fair. In our second run down the Shenandoah Valley, Union troops had a scorched earth policy, stealing what they could use and burning the rest, including homes. in WW II we firebombed most major cities in Germany as well as Japan, that killed more civilians than the two atomic bombs combined. In Vietnam we continuously fire bombed major cities in the north and villages throughout the north and south. The Russian record on disregard for civilians is hardly anything to try to claim moral superiority. As the pushed theNazis back, the civilians in the countries that were going through suffered some times worse than they had under Nazi occupation. The countries they have attacked in modern times were not spared atrocities, why would they change their military methods in Ukraine just because more people are paying attention? There is no such thing as a clean war.
The atomic bombs saved my father’s ass, he would have been on the landing crafts heading for the mainland. And the Japanese were not planning on surrender, despite their huge civilian loses to regular bombing. Sadly it took a new, horrible weapon to stop the bloodshed. Had Germany developed it first, Russia might have been a nuclear wasteland instead.

@Barnie2years I am happy they saved your dad and mentioned that the Japanese wouldn't stop attacking. Yes, all wars are dirty. I'm only saying that once something is done, and approved of, it's available to all who have the capability. Americans naturally feel that everything we have done was necessary or sad but doesn't define us. We make it worse by preaching to others about it. If we had not squeezed the Japanese out of oil they might not have struck Pearl Harbor so there's that. Everyone fights to the death in war and that was the lesson.