I agree, a first strike order is very unlikely.
But what if he fires off a nuke over Ukraine? Maybe in a way that it's not 100% clear whether it's a Russian nuke, or a power plant blowing up, or somebody else?
Or he orders to detonate a bomb over the open sea to demonstrate the capability?
But certainly, if I would be Putin, I'd be nervous drinking tea, or walking close to a window. That doesn't make him more stable though.
You can't make a nuke look like a power plant explosion; they're simply too different. No nuclear power station can explode in that fashion.
A bomb over the ocean wouldn't demonstrate any new capacity, and would be seen as the bluff it would almost certainly be.
A nuke on Ukranian soil would further open the floodgates of Western aid, expand sanctions, and push more nations firmly into the EU/NATO fold as Finland and Sweden already have been.
A nuke on Ukrainian soil also has the problem of the prevailing wind direction being from west to east. Detonating a nuke on Ukraine looks a lot like detonating a (smaller) dirty bomb on Russia.
Or he orders to detonate a bomb over the open sea to demonstrate the capability?
But certainly, if I would be Putin, I'd be nervous drinking tea, or walking close to a window. That doesn't make him more stable though.