The Red Army in 1945 was a shell of its former self, staffed with many Far Eastern minorities and females because so many “white” Russians were dead. Their strategy towards the end verifies this; they simply moved behind a rolling artillery barrage.
They did take a heavy toll on the European Axis forces, but paid a horrific price for it. Also, unlike the European Axis forces, the USSR only had to fight on one front; they observed a truce with Japan until the last months of the war, when they violated it to seize territory in Asia (planting the seeds for the Red victory in the Chinese Civil War, as well as both the Korean and Vietnam wars). While Americans fought and died pushing back the Japs, the USSR made nice with them (even sending their Far East troops to defend Moscow).
They lost 100,000 alone just taking Berlin.
I say we could have taken Berlin at a fraction of the cost, but Stalin didn’t care about how many soldiers he lost. He figured the bigger the sacrifice, the more concessions he could get from the Western Allies.