Meh. Łukaszenko and Putin were waving their nuclear dicks around over here for decades at this point. The only reason they do it is to scare away the more naive westerners. Nobody here takes it seriously.
A downfalling desperate Putin is likely to cause serious damage with nuclear weapons. I think should be very cautios, but am not suggesting we should giving in to his his nuclear erection. The doomsday clock is 90 seconds to midnight for a reason.
Putin couldn't even force his army to stop 500 people going on Moscow. Had to negotiate, losing face in his own empire. But he will surely have enough influence to force the same army to commit nuclear suicide on his dying whim :)
It's just a threat to make west slightly less likely to help Ukraine for real. If people stopped falling for it 10 years earlier we wouldn't have been in this predicament, millions of people and billions of USD would be saved. All that was needed was to accept Ukraine into NATO or do serious response to 2008 and 2014 russian invasions.
A conventional conflict with NATO seems like complete suicide. Even if it happened, I'd have no concern as long as it stays conventional. It would be like being attacked by an old Chihuahua.
I know. It's not a threat, just posturing. Russia entering any new war right now will just lose both. And Belarus is trying very hard not to forced to actually fight.
