They inherited the military of the Soviet Union, which was overhyped but large and not obsolete. They have invested money into keeping up with tech in principle

They inherited the military of the Soviet Union, which was overhyped but large and not obsolete. They have invested money into keeping up with tech in principle, i.e. a few demo units, but they don't have money to actually equip their military with the new tech or to train correctly. So the Russian military has Soviet nukes and otherwise it's a Potemkin village. It may be that the nukes are also a Potemkin village, but it's dangerous to check. Russia has been doing asymmetric operations, e.g. buying the US republican party was a lot cheaper than winning a war against the US but effectively was almost as good. Helping far-right, anti-democracy, anti-EU, anti-NATO politicians worldwide has been destabilizing. Organizing both the racist and the anti-racist demonstration at the same place and time has kept people and governments distracted. They do a lot of mafia style things to bribe, intimidate and kill people into doing what they want. Turns out going after politicians is more effective than going after military officers because counter-intelligence is more hesitant to act when they suspect a politician of working with/for Russia.