100% agree about Russia using nuclear weapons in a limited 'fuck off' type strike on a NATO base, I think it may come to the point where Russia has no choice but to show resolve there with use of one which is very unfortunate and will likely lead to many other NATO members independently acquiring nuclear weapons though they've been indicating an interest in that anyways (much like Russia not going into Ukraine would have meant not directly causing the nordic fascists to join NATO but still notching up an L for Russia and leaving them in a worse place, all moves have a cost for Russia, but the price of inaction is highest if NATO escalates and Russia turns the other cheek).

As long as Russia doesn't hit the US itself but a NATO base in Europe I don't think the US is going to do anything but ramp up the rhetoric, they're not going to risk their cities burning and their military destroyed while China sits on the sidelines watching and grinning to avenge some Europeans with a full strike. Now the worry is they feel a need to respond in kind to show NATO still means something for the western anglos at which point Russia as the aggressed against party needs to respond again (unless the detonation from the US was a show of force type thing like nuking a forest in Russia or the ocean) with nuclear force and from there things can get bad. Any use is of course a frightening escalation but more frightening to me is the idea of Russia being defeated by NATO and pushed out of Ukraine or hundreds of thousands, millions of Russians dying fighting them if it could be stopped with the use of a little bomb and the deaths of a few thousand or tens of thousands of NATO troop scum.

But if the NATO fascists are absolutely determined Russia not win and will not take off-ramps like carving up Ukraine, giving Russia the eastern portion it already de-facto controls and has incorporated de jure unto itself and then declaring that Russia not taking Kiev or Liev and signing a peace treaty that forbids NATO membership as a win then Russia sooner or later is going to have to take off the gloves. And how much longer China can sit on the sidelines is also a question, with all the sanctions targeting them and the knowledge that they are next for military aggression a few years after this thing with Russia ends and NATO re-arms has to weigh.

But you have to stand by your red lines with these NATO white supremacist, heirs to colonialism, entitled monsters, if you don't they'll take a mile when you had only intended to strategically cede an inch and then after taking that mile they'll gas your citizens in terror attacks using chemical weapons anyways just to show how far they plan to take on walking all over you (for reference Russia has claimed evidence of use of banned chemical weapons against Russian troops and civilians and recently the FSB raided a group of Ukrainian terrorists in Russia planning such an attack, the OPCW has been ignoring their claims showing once again international law is largely whatever the west wants it to be).

Fact is they've been humiliated, they've realized too late their world order, their threats, their military credability has all gone up in smoke and now many of the Euro liberal elite, now burning from collapsing economies they did to themselves at the US behest and feeling backed against a wall may be feeling like lashing out and dying on their feet is a better gambit than losing what they and their monstrous ancestors built over centuries of colonialism with a whimper.

It is interesting though that the US, Poland, other EU countries have all now publicly come out against this idea. Though truth be told given that NATO would hardly want to telegraph an attack and direct deployment of their troops into Ukraine and would almost certainly do it through surprise to give them an advantage so their public statements to the contrary don't mean it won't happen. Though if they are being honest it may just be a French bluff after all trying to seed a threat for leverage in negotiations.

Frankly in the face of the neocons I suspect there can be no peace, without such a show of force as a limited nuclear strike at minimum

This is an interesting possibility for avoiding WWIII, but what kind of target would be hit?

Breaking the frontlines wouldn't really be possible I think especially with Russia's own troops nearby, so perhaps an attack against a logistics base behind the frontline or even going for the NATO countries' base far at the rear so NATO couldn't say they got attacked in their own territories?

Another possibility could be a nuclear attack against the first country Russia engages with, but I'm not sure they would do that.