Those were eliminated on day one when Ukraine shot down an airplane full of them because Russians forgot air defense is a thing to take out before you send in limited resources.
The rest of them? Vlad got drunk and wound up on the front line instead of the drunk tank.
They are praticing keeping their population calm and supportive no matter how rediculous the losses. And they are very successful at that. So they know they can send more millions to die for the smallest gains.
No one is deluded. Russians know shit like this is fake propaganda. Their leaders know the people know. So why keep up the pretense? Because now the people don't trust the media and assume all of them are liars, including Western sources. Look at all the stories of Soviet citizens defecting or visiting the US and being stunned that the grocery stores were actually full and not just US lies.
An exercise for the student: Have you seen this sort of thing happening in America?
(Hint: Our last President literally said, "Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening," Trump said. "Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news."
The audience for this is ethnic Russians in the Baltic countries. They want those folks to cause trouble even if they have no intention to do anything about it. Around of a quarter of Latvia and Estonia are ethnic Russians.
If the subtitles are correct, lose the quotation marks in your title. That's the gist of what he's saying but you're misquoting this douche and that helps no one