I would argue that any problems that existed within the Soviet system became worse as the Union collapsed. Instead of Private Ivanovich being just a dumbass who only steals stuff because he might need a spare set of screwdrivers for his motorcycle, there suddenly was a rather large monetary incentive to steal everything because the wages were shit for everyone involved and the people who normally would stop you happily looked the other way when they were handed a large wad of foreign cash. The pilots had their jobs go from amongst the most prestigious in the Union to barely being able to afford living expenses, leading to anyone with talent leaving in the hopes of actually getting paid flying cargo or mercenary work. The now-Colonel but then Junior Lieutenant, still had a functioning dick, an uncle at high places in Minsk and a set career path for his future as the General Secretary by 2030. Instead, he spent the past 30 years trying to keep his job without dying to many hazards of the post-Soviet world while setting himself up with a mansion in Spain instead and now he's actually supposed to do real work fighting a war.
Though, officer training in the Soviet Union didn't use any sort of a OCS system like the States does. Instead, you receive your officer training as part of your general education in the university to a fairly narrow role. While it does ensure that there's lots of highly specialized officers in niche roles, it tends to not make for good all-around officers when the only actual task you are expected of and trained for is managing a meterological outpost near Murmansk.
Source: One of my bosses at work was a legit former Soviet Officer, stationed on the Chinese border "in the middle of the fucking woods" during the 80s. He was ostensibly in an airdefense command at an air defense base/installation, but they had no actual SAMs, just (crumbling) concrete pads where they would go, and old 1960's AA guns with non-working RADAR and nearly no ammo (higher command decided they would be just as effective against a chinese invasion with 20 rounds per gun as 200 or 200 - that is: not a goddamn fucking lick - but those brass casings could be melted down and had worth on the black market). They did have some infantry guys so they just put the infantry guys on the perimeter with binoculars to look for ChiCom aircraft. He'd tell stories if you got some Vodka in him.
And in his office he had a minifrige. I'll give you one guess as to what was in the minifridge.
Additonally,
Mig Pilot: The Final Escape of Lt. Belenko.
The only thing that changed militarily after the USSR collapse was how open the upper brass was about stealing, and how cheap western goods - the primary thing everyone stole stuff to buy - suddenly got. Also the market exchange rate - It used to take a whole truck load of uniforms to be "lost" for a Captain or Major to afford a pair of Levis, and when fencing your stolen goods you had to trade for a lot of physical goods you hoped someone would want. It took something like 5 hops to actually get the guy who smuggled denim.
After 1991, you could now sell all sorts of things "directly" (i.e. via a fence) to Westerners for physical currency and exchange that currency with the guy who had what you wanted.
His officer training, other than standard drill and march, amounted to "Here is the glories of USSR Missile tech" lectures - heavy on propaganda and numbers, light (read: devoid) on any practical instruction, and then once he graduated college he was shipped off to some place near Siberia which name escapes me to sit in the middle of the forest drinking with the other officers and ordering the regular
enlisted conscripted to watch the horizon for aircraft or chinese armor coming through the forest. The Majors and Captains were supposed to train him how to do his job, but there was no actual missile defense RADAR, just technical manuals for an entirely different system than the one they were supposed to receive. His main task was to ensure the men didn't do anything too utterly retarded while bored out of their skulls, and to work with the other officers to dream up busy work to occupy them.
One of the captains got it into his head they should do some hunting, my friend went with, got lost in the woods for two days and nearly died because there was no water in the forest and they only brought a canteen each, and after that no one left the base/installation. That is, when the US army sends you to Alaska, the intial training and site brief includes "there is what do when you encounter caribou/wolves/polar bears/wendigos/are stranged on an ice floe and are visted by the intuit pissshark god"; Soviets didn't even bother giving their officers basic land-nav course. (because if you gave them land nav they might use that to defect)
Anyway the moral of the story, as you can Read in
Mig Pilot is that the soviet military was just as corrupt & incompetent, it was simply hid better when The Party had control of the press. And while pilots DID live the top-tier of soviet citizen existence it was basically a working-class Western standard of living, complete with apartments built with green lumber and questionable plumbing. Everyone knew Western-made goods were superior to Soviet production (or at least the production given to non-party members). Once the average Soviet actually got a glimpse of what life in the west was really like, they were doing anything possible to get that for themselves.
And the Soviet military didn't have much in the way of standardized training (other than military discipline and formalities), it was "go to unit, learn from the guys there". I was figuring the rest of the post would make it very obvious I was being tongue-in-cheek with the details.
