The Russian army was several times the size of the Ukrainian in troops and armored vehicles. Their air force was even larger, relatively speaking. They've been a major arms exporter for half a century, with all kinds of supposedly cutting-edge equipment (like these tanks). They were one of the largest and deadliest militaries in the world, on paper. This was supposed to be an absolute cake walk for them, and the result was considered a foregone conclusion.

More than a year later, they're struggling to hold on to a few border regions against Ukrainian counterattack--and to accomplish that required large-scale conscription and rolling out obsolete mothballed equipment.

So I wouldn't dismiss reports like these as propaganda so easily, myself...