Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Because if you don't have a target in the first place, sending a warhead to a random position in the hope it will be shot down is a needlessly reckless move

I was waiting for someone to use that as an excuse. You actually think Russia would consider that? So after 80k war crimes, Russia is suddenly thinking an armed decoy would be reckless?

It's interesting that they are billing the Counter Offensive up. The last big counter offensive, there was a lot of talk about Kherson but it was really in Kharkiv.

The Russian offensive never happened. You'd wonder what the thought process behind the clear telegraphing of the offensive is.

Russia now look to be digging in and preparing.

Is it a bit of 4D chess to get them into defensive positions, bore them to death, have them drinking and rowing with each other and they disintegrate when they Ukrainians really roll in?

There's a feint somewhere in there and I'm struggling to work out what it is.

Russia did have a offensive, it just didn't get very far.

Last year the Ukr feint on the South to attack North East was very smart, but generally that type of move will only work once.

The coming Ukr counter-offensive may happen, it may not happen, we don't know the state of it nor the full state of the Ukr military at the moment (plus logistics). On the one hand there are clues they are really gearing up, on the other, as always in war, there are many issues/challenges they are facing. Just the mention of it has almost certainly caused the Russians to dig in. If the war stayed a "stalemate" this year, I wouldn't be surprised. Yes, Ukr is on a timer, but there's also vast pressure on the Ru military, with many cracks showing.

I'm only seeing this

You say "Contrary to popular belief Russia does not want missiles with warheads landing randomly on civilians."

All the multiple photographic evidence of mangled city landscapes in Ukraine, would kinda point the opposite way comrade. Russian military seems intent on destroying as much civilian infrastructure as it possibly can. And if they wipe out the Nazi mothers and children as they see them in the process, well it's a double win from their perspective.

The US manufactures its own decoy missiles

the very fact they are firing decoy missiles should not be read into (by itself) as Russians simply must be out of warheads. Match the alleged decoy with a missile model and work from there.

It is absurd to suggest without more evidence and analysis that these were nuclear missiles with removed warheads. It doesn’t seem very logical for Russia to reduce its number of active nuclear missiles even for what’s becoming a huge quagmire for them. It flies in the face of MAD doctrine. If foreign monitors spotted a nuclear rated/capable missile leaving Russia we’d have had a very different set of circumstances last night.

@fly_agaric On the air defence thing, I think it was coming from reports on the leak of US secret documents (?). One of them claimed Ukraine is running low on ammunition for their Soviet air defence systems (S300) [e.g. below link], which is not really a shock if true.

They also have only limited number of western Air defense missles ,one suggestion is they may only have 30 days supply at any stage ,

This is why when you look at the Israeli Iron dome system probably the best multiplayered air defense systems in the world, looks great on videos but it also very expressive to operate and kept supplied with ammunition,so it there is no mass threat to life it generally won't get activated,

While we hear reports and claims Russia is almost out of missles and artillery they are still firing missles, decoys or other which in turn the Ukrainans have to engage because they can't tell whether it's a decoy ,dud or live warhead coming,

The same applies to Russian artillery it's low they can't produce it yet listen to the soldiers in bakhmut and elsewhere Russian artillery comes day and night,

Which suggests that they aren't as bad we we all hoped or people claimed

The road into Bakhmut.

As was mentioned before, several missiles showed signs of being much older models, used for nukes, but with their nuclear warheads removed. They've already dug deep for tanks and other munitions so I wouldn't be surprised if they were dipping into some of their ageing nuclear stockpile.

Hope everyone was hurt.

All this talk of the offensive starting: It likely started weeks ago. It's not like a horse race with gates opening suddenly and everyone's off simultaneously, there's preparatory things like taking out air defence assets, a bit of sabotage here and there, crossing the Dnieper, probing actions, reconnaissance. I think there's a couple psy ops underway, playing down and misstating capabilities. At some point when the muds gone and the prep works done there will be larger troop and mechanised movements.

In the Bakhmut region.