Decoy AS-15.

This is coolbert:

Russian AS-15 Kent [NATO code name] cruise missiles in use the Ukraine Conflict. Designed specifically to carry an atomic warhead 

Kent in this particular incident without payload?

1. "Russia Firing Ageing Cruise Missiles Because Stocks Are Depleted, MoD [British] Suggests"

"Russia is firing ageing cruise missiles stripped of their nuclear warheads at Ukrainian targets because Vladimir Putin’s stocks are so depleted, the Ministry of Defense has suggested."

"An intelligence update from the British MoD on Saturday said the desperate improvisation by the Russian president’s struggling forces are 'unlikely to achieve reliable effects'."

"The evidence cited is pictures of apparently shot down AS-15 Kent air-launched cruise missiles, which were said to have been designed in the 1980s as a nuclear delivery system."

R and D work of the Kent began in the early 1970's, the first units deployed a decade later. 

2. "UK: Russia Hitting Ukraine with Old Nuclear Missiles – Minus the Warheads"

Original story the AP | JACK MONTGOMERY 26 Nov 2022.

"Russian forces are striking Ukraine with Cold War-era nuclear missiles – with the nuclear warheads removed, crucially – according to British intelligence."

MISSILES SANS WARHEAD. NOT EVEN A CONVENTIONAL AMOUNT OF ANY SORT OF BANG STUFF?

“'Russia is likely removing the nuclear warheads from aging nuclear cruise missiles and firing the unarmed munitions at Ukraine,' the Ministry of Defencs (MoD) claimed in its Saturday update on the course of the Russo-Ukrainian war, citing '[o]pen source imagery show[ing] wreckage of an apparently shot-down AS-15 KENT air launched cruise missile (ALCM), designed in the 1980s exclusively as a nuclear delivery system.'”

WILL CAUSE WASTAGE AND SPOILAGE OF VITALLY NEEDED UKRAINIAN AIR DEFENSE MISSILES AS A DIVERSION. AN "INERT" SYSTEM AS REFERRED TO CAN STILL CAUSE A LOT OF DAMAGE ADMITTEDLY. 

See previous blog entry those Russian high-precision missiles as expended less than half of the existing inventory as of 24 February 2022:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/10/one-third.html

coolbert.