I've been alive for the whole Cold War (mostly in the US), and never encountered the idea that the Russian Army is that great, or that Russians were superb soldiers. Was this a European myth?

Furthermore, we knew long ago that corruption and alcoholism were rampant in the (then Soviet) forces.

But it was a shock to the west in 1976 when a Soviet Mig-25 pilot defected and brought his aircraft to Japan. The technology was primitive by western standards.

Still, we in the US Navy respected Soviet sailors as being reasonably competent. But we outmatched them in technology.

The reason USSR now Russia was feared in the west was twofold: their nuclear arsenal, and their skill at subverting nations and converting them to armed, anti-American allies.

Those reasons hold to this day, although the debacle in the Ukraine may set back the success of subversion (and cooptation).