A brief observation about the war in Ukraine: it's two wars.
Ukrainian forces, globally resourced with funds, gear, and intelligence crowdsourced in near real time, fully integrated with the entire civilian society with redundant information systems, mark the epitome of literal bleeding-edge 21st Century warfare.
The Russian army, despite gushing reviews in Popular Mechanics, has had, from the Cold War to today, an earned reputation for kitting that strives for adequacy and a personnel approach emphasizing quantity as job one.
Add to that solid base of mediocrity the mercurial mischief only autocracy can provide and you get a military where independent commands, redundant information trees and built-in judgment checks are literally impossible.
Earlier, I noted Ukraine's efforts to reach out directly to Russian families to help identify Russian dead and wounded. One commenter noted the Russian military's cruelty in refusing to help, but it strikes me more as terror than cruelty.
Whoever got the call asking, "Hey, are you going to help ID'ing your guys?" probably had no idea and was terrified to ask. What's the policy? Is there a policy? Am I screwed if I ask if there's one???
Like with Stalin, with Saddam, no question can be answered by anyone, ultimately, but The Boss. And who in their right mind is going to ask The Boss what to do with the dead and wounded? Hell, has anyone even told him there are dead and wounded?
With its logistically-compromised force and a single-branch, one Decider command structure, the Russian military seems to be acting not at 21st Century speed, but mid-20th at best and harkening back further at times.
I've heard a number of commentators remark that this is “the first 21st Century war," but one side, a state without transparency or trust, simply can't operate at that speed.
History offers many examples of empires that have failed for just that reason.