Russia is a vast country, it is very difficult to organize an effective reserve system.
Complicating this is the decentralized nature and the corruption of the military. They don’t want to spend money on remote reserve training centers and supplies. They don’t even supply conscripts well.
There must be a way to ID the dead and let their mothers in Russia know.
Yep. Their conscript system shows why a kleptocracy is bad at war. It exists to collect bribes. Every recruiter accepts a fee to code someone as ineligible. Those fees gets passed up the ranks and pay for the grand dachas of each general.
For the military you are left with the dregs that are either too poor or too dumb to figure out the system.
Compounding this is that the army in Russia has a very thin cadre of experienced, professional NCOs. Without that group of soldiers to provide consistency, discipline, and training...you have a mob, not an army.
This fact isn’t really disputed. Nor is it propaganda.
The Russian Military structure has been its biggest weakness, and this was true even in the Cold War era.