Is Russia retreating in preparation for a nuclear scenario?

Is Russia retreating in preparation for a nuclear scenario?

In my opinion the only way to answer that would be to know the exact location of all their military leaders and trusted oligarchs real-time. When a majority of them vanish into the bunkers that is when I would expect escalation.

Based on what little I know of Russian military history they will do nothing to protect their troops or civilians but I am not a proper historian.

I don't see any evidence that Russia is broadly retreating. Evidently they have retreated where Ukraine had a strong offensive but it would be a remarkable coincidence if that was the bit that they were planning on nuking. And only that bit.

And if they were planning on using nuclear weapons, why would they nuke the parts that they control? Surely it would make more sense to attack Kyiv and other centres of command and control.

Maybe they will use nuclear or other mass destruction weapons but nothing that they have done (as against said) so far is consistent with that. Everything has been consistent with permanently annexing highly productive parts of Ukraine.

Don't believe anything you read about a war zone that you don't see first-hand. Everybody on every side spins things and gives you their own set of propaganda about what is actually going on.

As far as retreating, who is winning, and other questions like that. The military war is very eventful, but the economic war might be a lot more important in the long-run and might tell you more about the future.

I suppose the question is if we accept that Putin is dying and truly believes that killing everyone and himself in nuclear holocaust is better than hospice care in some expensive private hospital. Given he has spent lots of money he stole constructing a lavish private palace for himself, he evidently, at one point, had a plan to retire in luxury, which tells us he isn't some unthinking, unfeeling terminator.

I think he won't, but I cannot say for sure.