I think the dangers of Hyper-sonic weapons might be a little exaggerated. Yes they go very fast. But that speed comes at a price. it can't maneuver without sacrificing a significant portion of it's range due to the immense drag present on the object. A hypersonic missile launched at great distance can still be detected.
And thus it can be relatively easily intercepted with much slower missiles, because it can't change it's projected route to much otherwise it'll be unable to reach it's target. An object traveling at Mach 10 through bad weather or heavy clouds take significant damage from the water droplets. The US has been working on weapons designed to spread "clouds" specifically for countering hypersonic missiles. They haven't released any public information about these kind of counter measures and they won't until long after it's existence has become public knowledge.
The fact that you think it's easy to figure out a foreign country's production cost of cutting edge military equipment is what's hilarious.
We're not talking mass produced, decades-old equipment that's sold to a number of other countries.
Also, if it's easy, then you should be able to quote a price estimate and source that data, right?
We'll wait.
R.I.P. Democracy
"The difference between stupidity
and genius is that genius has its limits."
--Alexandre Dumas-fils
Besides the fact that they just dropped a nuke on Ukraine after threatening the same to others?...
Yeah, if I am armed with my gun at the ready and a robber threatens to shoot me and then shoots a guy in front of me, best bet I'm putting a bullet in that mans head before he does the same to me. Especially after he has already let it slip that he plans on robbing more people after he is done here and it isn't just "One Last Job" like in the movies.
If Russia sends the first nuke, it will be receiving many more in response.

What will happen in the foreseeable future: the sanction toll and civil unrest will be too great for Putin to handle. On top of this, Putin is losing too much in Ukraine. In an attempt to de-escalate the turmoil in his dystopian kingdom, he will launch a nuclear warhead towards Kyiv, killing everyone there. In his country, where information is thoroughly controlled and oppressed, Putin will proclaim to his people that the Ukrainians were attempting to launch a nuke at Russia but failed and destroyed themselves, winning him unanimous support.
After that, Putin will warn the West this is the reality of opposing him and to settle down and restore their economic relations. What ensues after this, I do not know.
But this is what I see happening, without a doubt, with the situation as it is.
Don't understand why people keep responding to the OP. Writing shit like that should give you a sweater with extra long sleeves, so you can keep hugging yourself.

You're saying that's not the case for you, but for many people and for most Ukrainians it's better to turn into an Afghanistan but eventually in the future win despite great costs, than to surrender and become slaves morally.
Their choice is between economically shitty and ethically shitty outcomes, and they're already in the shitter economically - why are you suggesting they should go for the double shit choice?

On the matter of the Russian article revealing 10000 dead, the article still exists. All that has changed is that the casualty numbers have been edited out.
Could it have been a hack? Possibly, but it would mean the hacker would have gained access to the systems and decided to make a minor change to just one article and not do anything more prominent, like changing the title of the article. So either it was genuine or it was the most subtle hack ever.
Using a nuclear weapon in Europe, on a major population center is an collective attack on NATO.
Radiation gets into the food chain, water supply. It is carried by the wind, cancer rates will spike, child mortality rates increase.
Killing a few hundred thousand Ukrainians also means killing direct relatives of Russians, brothers, uncleas, grandparents. Also the Ukrainians do not have nuclear weapons.
And if they could have them...they aren't fucking firing it from an urban center.
Dude ...you have some weird fetishes. Poorly thought out too
FUCK YEAH he would. Man, when someone was going to reply to that, I thought it would be concerning the logistics of angering NATO and how it would affect *him* in mind. His family, though? He has no capacity for empathy, as he has proven (like how do you kill millions and still have a soul). If he has kids or wives, they are extensions of his ego and he would not care if they died if he (and his wealth) was fine.
That is the kind of man Putin is. Anything but appealing to his conscience with others in mind.
So, it would be best for the man to be killed at that point. Either way, if Putin launches a nuke, even at Ukraine, Russia will be receiving many more in return from multiple other nations.
There is little to no chance that Russia survives if he goes that far and he knows it.
As far as how you kill millions and handle it, easy, you dehumanize them. Where mentally you don't really see them as lives but just numbers on a spread sheet. That's how you do it with a clear mind, harder to do if it becomes people you personally know or have grown attached to. But the concept of dehumanizing your enemy is well known in war with countries making sure to condition their soldiers to do so throughout history which is also why many of them also do such screwed up stuff to them.
Religious people also make sure to do that as well which is why you can see them as the most "At Peace" people you will ever see while at the same time being the most evil to anyone else they consider "The Other" or "The Lesser".
I know Putin can kill people within his ranks, country and around the world with ease, but when it comes to killing the ones he has raised and cares about, that gets harder to predict.