I saw a clip of the strike the night it happened. It looked like a nuke at first glance, but not conclusive. I didn't bother researching it because it turns out no one really cares about analyses such as these. (Much easier to make stuff up or just ignore it, you see.) I was finally triggered (haha) to take another look by this story:

Exclusive: IAEA Said BIG Tactical Nuke Used by Russia Near Kherson, US Ordered It Covered Up (Confirmed) (The Intel Drop 5/5/2023)

Why precisely did the US order it covered up? That's what I wanted to know. I didn't find out in the article because it has no text. Knowing their (purported) calculus could be important and it's still an open question.

But let me note here that many, many dozens of nuclear devices have been used in various hostilities over the decades. That includes in the current conflict, like this 2014 blast at a depot in Czechia holding munitions for (you guessed it) Ukraine:

A Look Back At The Deadly 2014 Czech Depot Blast That Prague Is Now Blaming On Russian Agents (RFE/RL 4/18/2021)

Look at the size of the crater, and how almost all of a reinforced concrete bunker was obliterated by a blast centered outside the structure. Oh yeah, and the dude in the full hazmat suit.

The night of the Pavlohrad strike, there was--interestingly enough--a rumor on 4chan reposted on Reddit that Kiev got nuked. Maybe it did too, but I have no info:

Kyiv nuked according to 4chan, thoughts? (5/1/2023)

First, was there anything in Pavlohrad worth nuking? Maybe. Estimates in the recent "leaks" were that Ukraine was going to run out of air defense missiles later this month. This strike may have moved that up to about... now. The third-hand rumor you can read in this tweet claims two divisions (up to 16 installations) of S-300P, along with supply vehicles and reloads, were destroyed. One would guess these were staged for whatever spring Kherson "counter-offensive" Ukraine/NATO has in mind. Maybe it's off the table now.

On to the meat of the analysis and the article I stumbled across today:

Incredible Destruction Seen At Ukrainian Rocket Storage Site That Detonated After Russian Strike (Updated) (The Drive 5/4/2023)

About 2/3 of the way down you'll find this tweet with b/w security cam footage of the event. What you'll see is this: First, far in the distance, a conventional cruise missile strike. Then at 0:25, there are two more or less simultaneous detonations. The closer one is another conventional warhead, and you can't even see the shadow of the column of dust and smoke for a few seconds because the camera sensor had it's soul blown out by the glare of the nuke behind it.

There are a few things to notice about the nuke blast. It's obviously different than the other two, dwarfing them. The glare is huge, and persists for quite a while. The shockwave is clear and titanic. Chunks of flaming missile propellant and explosives are scattered very, very far. Also note that it's "all in one go", not the slow "cooking off" process of an ammo depot fire.

Now to orient yourself, I refer you to the last couple of sat pics in the article. The security cam was off to the "left". You can see the pinprick of damage by the conventional warhead on the left, and the devastation on the upper right. They knew just what bunker to hit and they annihilated it. The blast also ravaged all the nearby bunkers. Remember these are reinforced concrete behind earthen berms.

Finally, the first half of the article includes closer photos of the bunker. More precisely, where the bunker used to be. Note that the extreme heat of the nuke and wide scattering of flaming debris burnt all the greenery for hundreds of meters around the site.

So did the Ukraine War go nuclear, yes or no? You probably didn't expect it, but it's really a philosophical question, isn't i? As I mentioned, nukes have been used in anger numerous times.How do they keep it secret? Easy: they don't tell you about it. Well, you'll say, people could find out for themselves. I know. I just did. But virtually no one else does. That's my point. Not hard to keep a secret when no one is looking for it.

Using inductive logic, we can do some further thinking:

First, let's dispense with all the talk of a "fake war". What do you need real nukes for in a fake war? People that buy into this seem moronic to me. I invite any morons to declare themselves.

Second, there's so much talk about NATO conducting a "nuclear false flag". Well, they could have just called this one out for what it was, right? But they didn't, and there's something to be learned from that. (Personally, I think "They" do not have control of any nukes any longer.)

Third, Russia is "in it to win it", and they are going to do what they feel is necessary and appropriate to accomplish that. So many people say, "Russia issues all these warnings, but the pussies never do anything about it!" Well, now we've all seen them do something supposedly "unthinkable", they just didn't bother announcing it. So again, all the people that include "russkies are pussies!" as part of what they call thinking seem like total ignoramuses to me.

If you read this far, thanks, and I hope you got something out of it. Also, congratulations on having an attention span on the far-right of the bell curve.