There is one accidental positive to this. As far as I know the Russian army is not battle hardened, this would explain why they are having the troubles they are.
This bodes well for anyone China invades as their army is also not battle hardened.
Battle hardened is an odd choice there. Battles change with every enemy and landscape. Militaries adopt a doctrine, but not all doctrine adapts or can adapt to the situation. This is why militaries exercise and increase their readiness. The best measurement remains readiness, but it is pretty much dogma in any case.
A troop who has done 1-3 tours in Iraq, would be more aware, reactive, responsive, but put that same troop now in Ukraine, suddenly the situation changed, and would not display the same readiness as in Iraq.
Somebody here earlier mentioned how much the USA is investing in their military (and R&D), it is, without doubt, unrivalled, but China and Russia only do state contracting, ignoring state corruption (which also happens in the private sector) their expenditure is comparatively and considerably reduced. Countries don't build armies to be the biggest and the strongest, it is built to suit their needs. Though, yes, it needs to be battle-tested, war will always be conducted by the soldier in whichever capacity that soldier may be.
Russia doesn't have troubles; they don't seem intent to invade the metropolitans at this time. They take the outer suburbs but haven't moved on central districts other than in the South and Sumy. Kharkiv is being sieged, and say the reports are accurate, then Russia is still encircling Kyiv. Russia built up their logistics in areas they have captured, most possibly also rotating troops. They can mobilise 5 times as many more troops to the incursion points. At this time it would be crucial to cut any Western support coming into Ukraine, and to prevent said support reaching where it would be most needed.
Now, Russia has been modernising outdated arsenal, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them use reserves in initial attacks, outnumbering similarly aged arsenal. I have seen many T-90s, but many more T-72s, not so many T-80s, and Russia’s newest and latest hardware are pretty much still a testbed and I haven’t noted a single Armata based unit, but it is notable that more updated arsenal is being brought into Ukraine.
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