[From “Dmitry Suslov: It’s time for Russia to think about a ‘demonstrative’ nuclear test”]

There’s every indication that the US and several of its allies may soon allow Ukraine to use Western weapons, including long-range missiles, to attack targets located within – how do we put this? – Russia’s internationally recognized borders. Or those that existed before the 2014 Maidan in Kiev[…]
Such a decision would take the conflict to a fundamentally different level, would mean the erasure of one of the brightest “red lines” that has existed since February 24, 2022[…]
There are at least two reasons why the West is now discussing abandoning this principle. The first and main one is the increasingly difficult position of the Ukrainian army on the battlefield[…]
The second reason is Russia’s unwillingness to escalate relations with the West each time it crossed a ‘red line’ and became more involved in the conflict[…]
Thus, the West has come to believe that the cost of Kiev’s defeat is far greater than the risks of a direct military confrontation with Russia, as a result of allowing Western weapons to strike deep into its ‘old’ territory[…]
This logic can inevitably lead to World War III[…]
In a few months (or maybe even weeks), the same logic will be applied to stationing regular Western troops[…]
According to even the current Russian nuclear doctrine (certainly a ‘peacetime’ doctrine in need of tightening), such a scenario would amount to official grounds[…]
To confirm the seriousness of Russia’s intentions and to convince our adversaries of Moscow’s willingness to escalate, it is worth considering a demonstration (i.e. non-aggressive) nuclear explosion. The political and psychological effect of an atomic mushroom cloud, broadcast live on all the world’s television channels, will hopefully bring back to Western politicians the one thing that prevented wars between the great powers after 1945, and which they have now largely lost – the fear of nuclear war