Having elite forces with fancy equipment only matters if you use them well. If your only strategy is to yeet them far behind enemy lines while your main front with support is still bogged down then you won't have elite forces or fancy equipment much longer
Where does this portrait of Russia as an incompetent troop army come from? I thought we learned with ww1 that portraying your enemy as weak and incompetent only created morale issues when they were tougher than expected?
The war going on right now is a good place to start. They did a massive air assault with elite VDV units without proper support, which caused them to lose Antonov Airport like six hours after capturing it, and are now wandering armor through urban areas that have AT nests camping out every window. Really the only reason they managed to do as well as have is their focus on shutting down Ukranian air in the initial missile wave and their sheer numbers.
Ironically that train of thought is what is hampering Russia now, since their actions seem to communicate an expectation that they would have been able to just walk into Kyiv like they did for Crimea, and didn't expect the actual resistance of an army fighting for their home
