Both America & Russia(then USSR) lost a lot of their peoples during WW2 in a effort to save Europa from itself(nutzism). The Euro-peons just can't let go of the socialism(self enslavement) religion & their worship of their almighty elitist officials. From what I have read Russia puts roughly 70% of it's military budget into both determent & first strike nuclear capability including their SSBM's(Submerged Ship Ballistic Missile). The remaining 30% of Russia's defense budget goes into conventional(non nuclear) military capability. "IF" this is true it may be the primary reason WHY the Russian conventional military forces did not perform as well as expected in the Ukraine.
Russia Submarine Capabilities
Overview of Russia's submarine capabilities and import-export behavior.www.nti.org
Russia has the largest inventory of nuclear weapons of any country in the world. If push comes to shove Russia has nukes of all types by the numbers no less.
Trying to NATOize countries that border Russia was a serious mistake in my opinion like I preferred the neutral states bordering Russia strategy. Too late now as the cat's out of the bag & it looks like we as humanity cannot get that cat back into the bag. This can only go two ways, statesmanship & an end to current hostilities in eastern Europa, or the situation in eastern Europa heats up to the boiling point. Just pray for peace as advances in weapons technology has made another world war a sure fire loser for all of humanity.
No one is "trying" to "NATOize" countries. If a country wants to join NATO that is your prerogative and choice. No one is pushed to join NATO. If anything, it is aggression like what we've seen from Russia which forces countries to seek membership.
The russian military is underperforming because of horrible top down leadership, bad tactics, bad information, bad strategy, terrible training and lastly widespread corruption. Virtually everything we've ever known about Russian military capability has been a lie. Their nukes are probably missing critical expensive pieces no one even knows is missing because they've been stolen in order to be sold off somewhere. Who would know unless the nukes are actually used, and by then, who would even care? That is what has happened to their tanks, for example. Tanks in reserve have had parts stripped, which are not easily replaced and are now impossible to do so due to sanctions. Most of the tanks that are still usable are out on the battlefield now. Once they're gone, they're gone and Russia has possibly lost upwards of half of them in 2+ months of fighting. Putin wants this war to end ASAP before he loses everything.