If his goal was to scare members of NATO from offering direct military assistance to Ukraine, he succeeded. Poland wanted to lend fighter jets to Kyiv, but the idea melted away pretty fast (even though U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to revive it).
But for the moment, the question about nuclear weapons is still unanswered. In the Cold War, both sides intimidated each other with nuclear weapons, but no one went all the way, even though it came very close on more than one occasion. The reason is extremely obvious: no one could be sure that it wouldn’t escalate to a full-length Armageddon.
