Question for military guys on here: why is Russia sending lightly equipped ground troops?

Their machinery is getting taken out with armor piercing RPG's. Russia entered a death pit.

Lighter log tail.

A single tank is about the most fuel inefficient vehicle out there. As an example, just idling while you do motor maintenance on an M1 burns 30+ gallons of fuel.

Could be that the whole operation is, at this point, largely composed of light motorized columns conducting probes and recon-in-force ops.

We have some pics of Russian tanks, so, there do seem to be some heavy mech columns involved.

Russian special forces are surely involved.

Putin's strategy may be to utilize these military ops as a fulcrum/lever that will compel Ukraine to settle things with Russia at the negotiating table. But, to be honest, I don't understand Putin's thinking at this point.

Eastern Europe in general is super poor and depressing.

They’re trying to force concessions rather than flatten the place.

Cities are a death trap for heavy armor.

The oddity is that the power is still on and the water works fully engaged.

The US approach would be quite different. Transmission lines go down two or three towers from a power plant. Everything turns black. The same transmission lines take down water works and communications. Within one week of the war being over, lights back on, water and communications. Hit a power plant directly and it's lights out for a year or more. Two or three towers worth of high voltage lines are easy to replace.

I'm beginning to think the myths surrounding Cyber Security attacks are just that. If not bombs....both the US, Western Allies and all of Ukraine would be silent, if the myth worked. Putin has no direct control over anything ....and that makes the Chicken Little scare tactics of the US Government all the more suspicious.
What gives the impression for example, that a cyber security breech o a power plant at Florida Power and Light would ever turn the lights off at Los Angeles Department of Water and Power? Hint .....it doesn't and the government is dumb enough to try to use it as a scare tactic.

Depending on how many Javelins they think Ukraine has.

Get that armor on city streets where it can’t maneuver and guys on rooftops with javelins can damage armor very fast.

Not to mention I don’t think Putin wants to destroy the city. He wants to look like a liberator not a destroyer

Could be a number of reasons.

Current attacks are probing in nature. Once weakness is found then elite units are sent into those holes.

Current attacks are intended to pull Ukraine forces into the east so the can circle their troops

Current attacks are a faint attack. Main attack will be in another location

Most troops were deployed to Belarus. May be setting up for invasion of Baltic states or Poland. And Ukraine was diversion.

May be hopping for refugees to spill into Poland and SE Europe before making full attack. Less civilian casualties

This is just an attack to claim separatist regions.

Or other things we can’t thing of

Only Putin and his command staff know if there are behind schedule or not. As they only know the full plan.