The uneasy and ashamed body language shows that most don't agree and understand that a first strike will result a large number of Russians loosing their lives too - it appears that the Russians are just working out that to Putin + his cronies like this TV programme, that they are not treated as non humans, slaves and the buffer line for eradication by Putin.
The issue is that the range required for what he is talking about requires ICBMs or long range hypersonic. Unless there is a Russian cell with a nuclear bomb in the target city.
The issue with Long range is that it sets off everyone's favourite mutually assured destruction scenario - with a strong chance that China could be destroyed directly or indirectly along with the western world.
What this is attempting todo is make the false flags more difficult - if a bomber invades the airspace, with a bomb/standoff launched missile that could be nuclear with this rhetoric then it is likely to be shot down and the everything escalates.
Does Putin want to be the one that destroyed Russia?
Everyone talks about Russian cities built to withstand attack, however given the state of the Russian military observed so far and the corruption - it's highly unlikely that the shelters and provisions are able to maintain a population for the length of time required.
The other wild/crazy alternative - is Putin attempting to de-populate Russia but not be seen to be the one initiating it? To rebuild Russia in is own image - perhaps Putin and the Orthodox Church leaders have been smoking JuJu juice in the basement as they contemplate the last remaining years of their lives and being manipulated by the religious leaders. After all you may get nuked in this life but there's rainbows and unicorns waiting for their worldly pleasures in the next life..
Seriously - this guy is over compensating and obviously wants promotion. If Putin performed a first strike against Poland or other states then the Chinese would be rather concerned being bordered with Russia. The Ukraine also has made the general populations understand they need to pick up arms to defend their country - and accept people will die.
This negates the use of short range tactical nukes, so perhaps Russia is trying to drive up the false flag pressure with air launched long range cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.
The main issue is the "we can nuke you but you can't nuke us" psychological safety net. Then the you hit us so we hit you back harder approach. It's chess again.
Putin knows that Americans only care about nuke strikes on American soil. He knows that the EU would be left to pull the pin should a European city met with a Russian first strike. He would say to the Americans - a military action on Russian soil will cause a strike on the EU and their allies (ie US soil).
What would be interesting is if the missiles ended up in the wrong spot. There's a hole in Putin's chess - it expects rules of the game. If a Russian-sourced nuclear fuelled device was smuggled into a Russian border and detonated as a first strike against conflict areas then it would cause chaos.
However this talk is as crazy as that TV guy.
