Still skeptical, Russia has just had such an awefull performance again and again in one war after the other.

They got beaten badly by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese war. The Crimean war was a disaster. They collapsed in WW1 and had to sue for peace.

They mostly lost the Winter War against Russia despite overwhelming numbers and equipment.

They took a terrible beating by the Germans in WW2, and in many ways won because Hitler was such an idiot with strategy. The Russian winter, over extended supply lines and hubris did its number on the Germans.

Afganistan was such a disaster that it basically made the Soviet Union collapse.

Chechnya was another embarrasement. And now Ukraine.

Russia has primarily won on home turf, based on invaders who have taken weather, supply lines and the sheer size of Russia into account. Or they have won against declining powers like the Ottomans or where they have been in extreme numerical supperiority.

But the numerical superiority that Russia could once rely on is not really there anymore. They used to have a population larger than the US. Now they are not even half of that and with declining birth rates. In relative terms the economy has fallen ever further behind the West.

Russia is trying to prop up an image of a military superpower, but simply lack the resources to be one.