Explainer-Might Russia use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war?

FILE PHOTO - Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin in Moscow, Russia March 2, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

(Reuters) - At the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin obliquely raised the possibility of a nuclear strike against anyone who intervened in the conflict.

Below are some of the key issues surrounding the possibility - viewed as remote by many analysts and Western diplomats - that Putin might actually use nuclear weapons.