British intelligence: Russian military shells Ukraine with missiles stripped of their nuclear warheads

The Russian military is shelling Ukraine with missiles that have had their nuclear warheads removed, British intelligence has said in its traditional daily review of developments in the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict.

It is about old cruise missiles that have had their nuclear warheads removed before launch, the UK Ministry of Defence has concluded, citing intelligence reports

The ministry said that pictures from open sources showed wreckage of the AS-15 KENT cruise missile (as the Soviet X-55 is called in the West), which was developed in the 1980s. The nuclear warhead was removed from it and probably replaced with ballast. At the same time, such a missile remains dangerous

Even so, such a weapon could cause damage due to its mass and kinetic energy

British intelligence does not rule out that such missiles would serve as decoys and could divert the attention of Ukrainian air defence systems:

Whatever Russia's intentions, this improvisation underlines the level of depletion of Russia's long-range missile stockpile

Earlier, Defence Express wrote about the use of Kh-55 missiles designed for nuclear strikes, noting that for one of the latest strikes against Ukraine, the Russians "unwound" at least one Kh-55 from their "nuclear arsenal", removed a nuclear warhead from the missile and replaced it with a "dummy" missile and hit Ukraine with it.