There's also a lot of western myths about the Red Army that were strange to say the least. A lot of people seemed to think the USSR would adopt pre Operation Bagration human wave tactics from World War Two when the societs were desperate. Another was that there was still Kommisars in the Redd Army when they were actually removed in 1943 because they immobilised command procedures. Instead the second in command of a battalion was the automatic
zampolit who had to give a lecture or two every now and then and organise the sporting timetable
The NKVD 'blocking troops' dated from a desperate time when the Nazis had to be made to buy every metre of the
Rhodinya with blood and kit. They were never considered a good idea by anyone, just an emergency procedure and were never even considered for later actions.
In the 2nd Chechen War the Russian Army had shown that when reorganised, paid well and equipped well with new gear and special equipment and troops they could take the battle to the Chechens and win decisively. They adopted modern western concepts quickly and are now equal in capacity and technology (except night vision tech, which they steal) with the west. This might well have been what later war troops looked like.
What really defined the Red Army though was how it used artillery. In the west the emphasis has long been on precision strikes but in the east this is seen as unnecessary. Instead they just use
a lot more tubes than the west would ever consider. This allows them to blanket sectors with rocket and tube artillery to deny movement and support.