Overrated. They got their ass handed to them in Afghanistan.
Not really, the Russian experience in Afghanistan is not a very different experience than we have had. They had more dead than we did, but they were also had us and Pakistan heavily supporting the jihadis.
The differences in our experiences are attributable to no nation state materially helping the Taliban, and in modern battlefield medicine. But Russia was collapsing internally about then financially, and after a decade, Afghanistan was no closer to civilized than it was the day they rolled in. So they packed up and left.
They were smarter than us, we are now on year 15, and no closer than we were on day one to a functioning society there. If we leave next week, or in the year 2030, it will collapse into tribal Islamic anarchy within a week.
In 2001, the Russians warned us as friends, not to get into a ground war there.
We exceed them in capability tech and in refined operational ways, but in honesty, the average Russian soldier does have more balls than ours today in all but a few top shelf units. And with women and trannies, many of ours quite literally have ZERO balls.
In the last 2000 years the Afghans have handed every invader their asses. We could beat them, but you need the will to do it.