The amount of knee jerk rage I've seen over paint whenever one of these incidents happens. Its paint. It comes off. Its an extremely effective strategy to get attention while causing little to no damage.
I dont think its unreasonable to assume that the Russian military command genuinely believed the they were a lot stronger than they actually were when this started. Just based on what news I've been following, it seems like its very common for Russian officers to lie to their superiors about how strong their units are for the sake of looking good.
I would love it if publications could just limit their headlines to one misleading term per story. The rocks are a 'city'? Sure. The geysers looks like 'spiders'? I guess. But when you start putting them together in the same headline it feels like your breaking the fourth wall or something