Russia and Ukraine

[The Architect Of Fate]

Not as though it will save them as Belarus suffers many of the same issues as Russia with honestly none of the advantages and it's also been observed Poland has been subtly telling  Belarus to back off so I don't think Lukashenka for all his bluster is going to make a full commitment.

Right, his Defense Minister is already on record saying Belarus doesn't want any active engagement in this invasion. My reading of the tea leaves suggests that Lukashenko is walking a fine line between appeasing Putin and keeping Belarus out of a war that will almost certainly prove unpopular amongst Belarusians, and could conceivably lead to his downfall given his deep unpopularity.

However, even given the low combat-value of the Belarusian army, a force of 60,000 troops on Ukraine's northern lines cannot be disregarded. That's probably why this demarche is happening.

Indeed the goal seems to be "burn everything down" and  " If I can't have it no one can". But it's what I have come to expect from Putin.

Terror has been an aspect of Putin's methods since day one of Russia's invasion.

The only possible benefit from this is that these PGMs, shot from an already-depleted stockpile which is already seeing Russian air-force planes resorting to dumb iron bombs, are not being shot at troops in the field, or their supply hubs/equipment depots, etc. And despite Putin's likely aim, civilian morale is very, very hard to break by bombardment -- just ask the British, German, and Japanese civilians of WWII what those intense bombardments did. In a nutshell, those bombardments only hardened civilian hearts against the enemies doing the bombardments. I don't think that will prove any different here.

True 60,000 troops is still  60,000 troops and Ukraine would be foolish to simply ignore such a threat but I don't think it will ultimately shift Russia's fortunes in the overall war and will be as you said before a distraction as Putin scrambles to find some actual soldiers and yes these missile strikes seem to be about morale and it will likely fail as it's nothing new and has historically only galvanized a populous. Pity Mr. Putin for all his bluster about The Patriotic War doesn't seem to have read a lot about it and seems intent on repeating mistakes from that era.