Have a retired military friend who had studied the Russian war in Afghanistan back in the 70’s/80’s say he was not surprised by the Russians poor performance in Ukraine. He said that post-WW II, the Soviet (and later the Russian military) was always a paper tiger. The problem, he said, is the same problem that all Russian bureaucracy has, rampant, ingrained corruption. He said when he was studying them, there were entire divisions and weapons systems that essentially only existed on paper, the state would send money for upkeep and purchase of new weapons and the people in charge would essentially just pocket the money or purchase the weapons and then turn around and sell them on the black market. There was rampant lying on readiness reports, basically the officers would say, “We are at 100% readiness!” When in reality they had sold all their guns and ammo and weren’t even feeding their troops on a regular basis.”
I don't doubt it at all, and have also been saying this for a long time. Especially after Afghanistan, and seeing the performance of Soviet equipment in Desert Storm. It's essentially third world equipment.
But this also means the Military Industrial Complex here has been lying about Russia's capabilities, to the people AND the politicians, for a long time. Not surprising, after seeing the compilation videos of them lying to congress for decades about the current capabilities of the Afghan army. It's all about money.
Wow! Is that ever scary . . . and a possible foreboding of what might be happening to our “woke” military!