I summarize here the content of a tweet whose author is an author for the international review specialist of the Russian army, followed on twitter by Michel Goya and Arnaud Danjean (who are French referents).
His analysis is quite apocalyptic on the state of the Russian army before the invasion.
To sum up:
Total contempt for the Ukrainians (bordering on racism) which led to a gross underestimation of the resistance that this country would offer.
the structure of the Russian GTIA is unbalanced (not enough trans, rens, poor integration with air support...) and complicates the task of Russian commanders
The army is plagued by endemic corruption that each level has a vested interest in hiding from the higher level. This means that at the top, the Kremlin has a completely distorted view of the real state of its army. The numbers are artificially inflated and, rather than admit it, the officers have preferred to fill the holes with conscripts in the front troops. Brigades normally served more as a reservoir of troops than as a combat formation, and troops were deployed in small packs rather than in a large coherent structure, which made it easier for the defenders.
Big logistical problems (again due to corruption and underestimation of Ukrainian resistance). The Russians were able to deploy large numbers of troops to the border, but the support they received was minimal even before the invasion. This scarcity of resources forced the Russians to plan an extremely rapid advance so that it would not become a problem. The advancing lead formations bypassed (but did not reduce) resistance by using secondary roads when major junctions were blocked.
This totally disrupted the Russian formations into a multitude of small columns scattered in the hinterland and unable to coordinate or obtain air support due to lack of communications. As a result, the Russian logistics system, which was already not very well developed, was completely lost to the units it was supposed to support and supplies no longer arrived.
The air assault on Kiev airport was an attempt to go all-in, like in poker. The hope was to catch the Ukrainians off guard on the first day of the war and decapitate the Kiev power centres.
The real state of the Russian army is ignored abroad because commentators focus on official communications and do not pay enough attention to eyewitness accounts from below, which leave no doubt about it.
