After Putin’s nuclear threat, what are the possible scenarios?

With the Russian military facing setbacks in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use “every means” available, raising fears of a nuclear conflict for the first time since 1945.
US President Joe Biden has set up a team of civilian and military specialists to assess risks and responses, warning Russia that nuclear war “cannot be won”.
Several experts and officials interviewed by the AFP explain the possible scenarios.
What kind of attack would Putin launch?
“It is highly unlikely that Putin will use Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal capable of striking the United States and igniting a horrific nuclear war,” said James Cameron of the Oslo Nuclear Project.
But Russia, the number one nuclear power in the world, with a stockpile of some 4,500 nuclear warheads according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates, has “tactical” nuclear weapons less powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
The Russian president may decide to detonate one of these “small” nuclear weapons in Ukrainian airspace or the Black Sea, according to the Russian nuclear “escalation and de-escalation” doctrine of first using a light nuclear weapon to take advantage of it. in the event of a conventional conflict with the West.
It could also target a sparsely populated area of ​​Ukraine or a Ukrainian military installation, with the aim of intimidating the population and urging Ukraine to surrender, or even urging Westerners to persuade Ukraine to surrender.
What could push Putin to use nuclear weapons?
Putin stressed that he could resort to nuclear weapons if Russia’s territorial integrity were threatened. He did not say whether this included Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, or the four Ukrainian regions that the Russian military partly controlled from the offensive, where referendums are hastily organized to include them in Russia.
Mark Kansian, a former US Navy nuclear strategist, believes this ambiguity means that the issue does not include Donbass and Crimea.
Kansian, now an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that “there is no point in launching a threat with such ambiguity if people are unsure whether they are truly vulnerable or not.”
The US government has not observed any nuclear weapons movement that would suggest preparation for such an attack.
“We haven’t seen anything that could change our position,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said Thursday.
– What will be the response of Westerners?
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the US government has tried to avoid any escalation: NATO forces do not fight in Ukraine and weapons sent by Kiev allies to Ukrainian forces are designed to avoid using Western bombs to hit a target. in Russian territory.
In the same context, the US administration has sent several private messages to Russian leaders in recent months to discourage them from using nuclear weapons.
But Washington must be firm, even if Moscow decides to conduct a limited strike in non-NATO Ukraine.