> By that interpretation both sides of war in ukraine are russian

Well, no, I made a pretty clear distinction about what context we were using "Russian" to refer to.

By that interpretation both sides of the war in Ukraine use Russian manufactured weapons. Which isn't a crazy thing to suggest, since it's manifestly true.

It seems very likely to me that the journalist meant "Russian-fired rocket". But is that what their source meant? I could easily see a conversation where a source said "Russian missile" referring to the type or manufacture of the missile, and the journalist misunderstood that as "Russian missile" referring to the army who fired it. Clearly, from the context of the slack conversation, this happened quickly without a lot of time to clear up the context.