Your comparison with the guys beating up is a bit unfortunate. The thing is that even if Russia loses this war, it will not mean death for its citizens or the country's elite. It will only mean actual death for the instigators of the war, and there are still various other options for them. For Russia itself, if it does not disintegrate into many independent states, this will be a good chance to pursue a different policy and a chance to eventually join the civilized states. Therefore, sensible people will not grab a nuclear club. Otherwise, the preparation for the use of nuclear weapons will definitely become known to the intelligence services of the world's states and then a preventive non-nuclear strike will be carried out on Russia and in this case physical death for many will become real.
If Russia loses this war, why won't they use nuclear weapons with full force before they die? Putin is old, he is dying and probably many KGB elites are old too. I think we all agree that they aren't sane (no politician is sane) and they have impearialistic dreams, I feel they think like either we get all or nothing, which is crazy. If the world doesn't stop Russia, Russia will stop the world, it's inevitable. Sadly, we fail to stop Russia because Putin is absolutely on another level inside the Russia, words simply can't describe what system this man built, he is immortal, there is no billionaire or any human in Russia that can stand against him, it's probably something that we haven't seen before.