Russian army's destruction in Ukraine

 Insider:

Over the roughly two decades that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power, he's dedicated a lot of time and money to building up and modernizing Russia's military. In the process, Putin garnered a reputation as a force to be reckoned with and was widely viewed as one of the most powerful leaders in the world.

But the war in Ukraine has decimated the Russian military that Putin spent years building, while raising questions about his grip on power, Russia experts and military analysts told Insider.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a strategic defeat. So far the Kremlin has not been able to achieve its strategic level objectives and it has incurred significant costs. Russia's military is going to have to be rebuilt," George Barros, a military analyst with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told Insider.

"The conventional ground army ground force that the Kremlin has spent the last two decades on creating — seeking to create a modern military — that force has been just largely degraded and in a large part destroyed in the past six months of war in Ukraine," Barros added. "It's very true to say that the conventional Russian ground force has taken a significant beating in Ukraine. It will have to be rebuilt."

Though it's difficult to confirm death tolls with the fighting ongoing, US military estimates last month put Russian casualties as high as 80,000. Among the dead have been senior officers, including generals.

Barros said that it will likely take "a generation to recreate" the Russian officer corps, which is "definitely going to have a long-term strategic impact on the net assessment for Russia's conventional military."

And though Putin has so far avoided declaring a general mobilization to make up for significant troop losses in Ukraine, the Russian leader in August ordered the military to increase its ranks by 137,000 starting in 2023, an ambitious goal seen by some as unachievable and one of many signs that the Russian military is being hollowed out by the war in Ukraine.
...

NATO is probably safer as a result of this hollowing out of the Russian military.  It is also clear that the military Putin built during this period while not a Potemkin facade was not up to the task he gave them in Ukraine. 

See, also:

Russian soldier in Kharkiv told his father in a call intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence that 'everything's bad,' Russia is 'losing," and they have 'nowhere to run'

And:

 ‘It’s Not an Army Here’: Russian Soldier Warns of Battlefield Collapse

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