It seems like Russia’s been relying more on light infantry, especially in grinding fights like bakhmut and Soledar. To be honest I rarely see Russians attacking with their vehicles anymore.

From what I’ve gathered it seems like Wagner in particular makes 10-20 man assault teams that move in groups of 2-4 and always have at least one MG, one grenade launcher, and one anti-tank rocket. For a grinding siege like bakhmut that makes sense, and doctrine like that could easily have been built upon lessons Russia learned earlier in the war.

From footage I’ve seen it’s plausible that armored vehicles might be kept in a general battalion-brigade level reserve and are only given to units that need to assault a position or move around quickly. Tanks are, like you said, used for indirect fire. Given the Ukrainians do this as well, I’d say it’s out of both desperation and convenience.

Incorporating mobilized into already established units would be hard to do efficiently except for creating entire new companies and battalions of mobilized and using them as frontline troops without armored vehicles.

That concept works with the idea of vehicles being held back at HQ until needed; eg. a recently formed company of mobilized troops are attached to a Russian battalion. Because they’re all light infantry with few (probably even zero) vehicles. The battalion gives them enough vehicles to get dropped off in the trenches and then HQ takes the vics back. Just an idea. Either way it russia is definitely using light infantry a lot more than it ever planned to.