There was a sincere risk of Russia using nuclear weapons earlier in the conflict, around the winter of 2022/2023 when the first major Russian mobilization of 600k failed to achieve the desired outcomes and the North Western front started to collapse. The released intelligence info put it at about 50/50.

This is why, at the time, the Biden administration made several clearly coded messages/announcements that nuclear weapons usage in Ukraine would result in an overwhelming conventional retaliation that would remove Russian military capability from the board. It’s also part of the reason nations were so slow to provide advanced support capabilities. There was a fear (justified, imo) that immediately opening the floodgates and giving Ukraine tanks, jets, advanced missiles, and using those missiles to strike deep in Russian territory would result in usage of nuclear weapons. It still is a risk, honestly. If Ukraine started doing heavy damage to Moscow, there’s a real chance Putin might decide to flip the table over rather than lose the game.

I feel it. My back was spasming so hard that my right leg was an inch and a half shorter than my left because the muscles were cramped that hard and wouldn’t release.

I swear roberts only makes good decisions to build up capital for the bad ones.

When it first happened the doctor asked my pain level and gave me a look when I said “10.” So I explained that I was doing everything I could to not be actively groaning/sobbing/screaming out loud because society reacts poorly to huge dudes behaving like that. That I’d spent most of the drive over screaming in my car. That I’d puked a few times the night before from pain.

I finally summed it up as, “if you tell me now that I’ll still feel like this in two weeks, I will go home and kill myself. Because that’s my estimate of how long I can endure this.”

Ended up getting into a physical therapist and eventually got cortisone shots. Fixed most of it, thank god