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Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal and have modernized their platforms. There is not much Soviet hardware left in the Russian arsenal.
Russia has a solution to the first strike problem, decentralization. If it takes 30 min for a nuke to reach Russia, then Russia can have the setup where two of the three following must vote yes for a strike: the president, the commander of the Russian military, the chief of the Russian military staff.
With 10 minutes flight time there isn't enough time to have that system. Russia won't give up on mad, instead they will start handing out launch codes to lower level people. These people have an absolutely awful incentive structure. If one of their peers fire they are better off if they fire asap. Most nukes are aimed at enemy nukes. If you think one of your peers will fire and a nuclear strike in imminent, your best option is to fire away at enemy nukes. Giving more people ability to push the button, giving them less time to verify the attack and giving them an incentive to react fast is absolutely awful.
Pulling out of the INF treaty and expanding NATO eastward could be the start of the worst chain of events in 65 million years.
For Russia this war is worth it if they think the risk of a nuclear exchange is reduced by even 1% over the next century which is 1/10000 per year.
they did it in soviet times already (though not permanently, mediated by Dead Hand system)
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