Agreed, the Russians are tenacious fighters on land. Smart fighters, not so much. Stalin himself said that quantity has a quality all it’s own. If that’s what you think of your soldiers lives you understand why so many people died under this dictators leadership.
Otto Scorzeny - a notorious Nazi military leader and a founding father of modern special operations disagree. He said individual Russian soldier is superior to the German and so does the leadership up to a regimental level. Overall, he believed Soviet military in general were inferior because higher command were toadies fearing civilian politicians and pursued inferior strategy developed by said civilian politicians and the Soviet generals were butchers more cruel toward their own troops than to the enemy.