> if you do not mean a nuclear threat, then you explicitly say so.

That's not how people make threats. They are ambiguous for their own reasons. The media is supposed to report what's said, then people who know these things will tell what Putin actually means. The media jump the gun and put words in people's mounth is highly unethical, given the stake.

Yes, and that's my point. That's why 'deterrence' is understood to be nuclear. If someone threatened you with 'dark consequences' would you understand that to mean they were going to egg your house, or something worse?

I don't care what you think it means because your opinion on this matter is wordless. My point which you don't seem to get is that the media should report honestly, then opinion men like you can jump the gun and say nuclear. It's not the media's job to do that.

Deterrence isn't synonymous to nuclear why do I have to explain this. If you aim normal missiles to someone that's deterrence too.

Nobody in national security would fail to understand the threat. That you fail to understand what 'deterrence' means is entirely your ignorance. You have literally no idea what you're talking about.

No one is "failing to understand" there is a nuclear threat here. What is not understood is that I'm talking about the media and I don't really care about Putin's statement. In my opinion this statement is deliberately made ambiguous because if he said nuclear and something happens and he does not use nuclear he would look like an idiot wouldn't he. There is a difference between saying the word, hence making a commitment, and not saying it.

Again, that is NOT the point here. The point is, the media's job is to report exactly what he said. "National Security", or whoever can then interpret it as "nuclear", and make a statement about it, then the media can report on that too. The media dubbing "nuclear" over what Putin said, is wrong. If we can't trust them on doing the basic job, then we can't trust them on anything.

> That's why 'deterrence' is understood to be nuclear.

“Deterrence” is not generally limited to nuclear deterrence, though there are contexts where that is implied.

One of the functions of the conventional forces being deployed to NATO’s eastern flank in the present crisis is deterrence, of the non-nuclear variety.

(Putin’s reference to “deterrent forces” given the context of recent highly publicized nuclear high alert and other circumstances pretty clearly implies strategic nuclear forces, but you are way overgeneralizing.)