[Skybird]

They explained on TV that as far as NATO knows the Russians have a four stage scheme for activating their nuclear weapons, and are now on level 2 of four.

I believe - I dont know, I simply speculate - that this is something in the range of the US DEFCON scale being somewhere around 4, maybe 3.

Its also quite common for the big players that they have their nuclear readiness checked when they have conflicts somewhere. I would not be surprised if someobdy tells me that during the Iraq wars the Americnans were at DEFCON 4 also, at least at critical times.

Also keep on mind that on isolated nuclear platforms, namely SLBMs, you practically always have special circumstances and an inherently raised state of "special alert".

I think Putin , involuntarily, revealed something here, and that is that the Western reactions make themselves negatively felt for him. We now must stop to buy any oil or gas or coal from him. Or ores. Only then the exclusion from SWIFT can be extended to all Russian banks. when there are no bills we must straighten, then there is no need to pay anything, and the Russian players are not needed anymore and can be kicked out.

We should further reward him NATO's medal of merits for services to unify and consolidate NATO, maybe he escalates again and then has his waxen head going Plopp! in anger.