I think you missed the part where I said that the people I spoke to are in the CAF - Canadian Armed Forces.
And how experienced are the CAF at fighting Russians these days?
It's more than that, though - there's a damn good reason why historians (both professional and amateur) quibble about these things decades after the fact - it's because the claims made by both sides in nearly every war isn't reliable in the slightest.
Hell, if I were to believe all the casualty claims made by SADF vets (who I, unfortunately, grew up with) I'd be easy to convince that they managed to exterminate the entire population of Angola.
Ie... even the people who were there's word cannot be taken as gospel.