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.
Russia was always like this, old military model pre-American independence. Soldiers bullet catchers, trigger pullers, and reloaders.