I seem to recall that in the Russian army, like the Soviet one that preceded it, junior officers are discouraged from taking the initiative in anything that deviates from "the plan" even if "the plan" is shit that's killing people for no reason or other opportunities arise. Russian generals operate near the front for this reason because lower ranking officers aren't generally empowered to make tactical decisions, everything has to go up the chain of command.
Yes, low level commanders aren't allowed to make their own decisions in most situations but also if memory serves the more senior officers still basically have a mathematical model for how to conduct warfare, which given the state of the enemy, the terrain, troop readiness, etc. dictates how many resources an offensive will require to be successful. (I'm sure this is greatly simplified as compared to reality)
This sort of method absolutely REQUIRES accurate information though, and that's where the lying really hurts them. If your Russian subordinates report the last attack, while losing the Russians 500 soldiers, killed 1,000 of the 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers in a town you could reasonably expect that another attack of similar size would be successful. The only problem is in reality they only killed 50 Ukrainians so the next Russian attack is similarly doomed. Then the guy who ordered the attack is asked to justify his failure, considering he was given more than sufficient men and material for victory (based on lies by his subordinates). What does he do? He probably makes up his own lie that despite not taking the town they killed an additional 1,000 Ukrainians. (so now the next attack is sure to win, right?)
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