For anyone wondering about the use of white phosphorous, it's only banned if used against civilians or civilian infrastructure. Agreed that it's pretty horrible but targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure with what's arguably incendiary IS banned - and the Russians are doing that.

That said, it's pretty clear that having nuclear launch capabilities just a few minutes away from Russian population centers means that the next time the Russians have a false alarm they won't have time to verify and so will have to launch just because they're in a "use them or lose them" situation.

I'd suggest that the US military is quite aware of this and writing as though they are not is a deliberate red herring. For instance, where in the Baltic states (also within just a few minutes range) are these hypersonic vehicles (or anything else nuclear) already stationed?

You're also saying that the Russians will launch a general attack simply because the US *might* station nukes there. Again, look at the Balts.

Sorry, but this is just another "surrender because the Russians have nukes".

As far as "dead hand", I'd expect that went away when they stopped relying on signal rockets (for anyone interested in that system as it was, check David Hoffman's book of the same name). They have the same route-around-destroyed-nodes network packet system as the US now. It's the basis for what we call the Internet, but the original intent was that route-around.

On to payment in BRICS currency for petro. If the Russians continue to destroy their own pipelines to Siberian wells, they'll have a much more limited amount to sell as they'll be limited to the wells they can restart (so not in permafrost). Europe will have to buy elsewhere, whether that's in US dollars or not is a separate issue. For instance, China (with a much more robust economy than Russia) has been having difficulty in getting Persian Gulf suppliers to accept renminbi - and they've been paying for Russian petro in renminbi.