I don't get the Russian strategy (or lack thereof).

[Chainfire]

50. But, we did it. Because we did it, now it gets thrown back in our faces. Whadda you expect?

Our Soviet allies in that same war could be accused of all of the terrible deeds that you mentioned too, should we have nuked them too?

We attacked population centers for the purpose of terrorizing the Japanese into a quicker surrender. They were already beaten, and we knew it and they knew it. We did not have to invade Japan to end the war, we had complete control of the seas at that point, we could have convinced them to stop fighting when they got hungry enough; but we were in a hurry. We did the exact kind of thing, using firebombing in Germany too; Dresden comes immediately to mind, 35-50 thousand German civilians roasted or suffocated in one bombing, many of those killed were women and children refugees from other battle areas. It was terror for the sake of terror.

Let he who is without guilt, start throwing stones at other guilty parties!

Back to the present situation; Putin won't use nuclear weapons because it would lead immediately to his personal demise. He doesn't give a rat's ass about Russian civilian casualties, but the cowardly bastard wouldn't hasten his own death.