I find that West Russia going slightly worse than normal is of minimal impact as Russia.
Under the current patterns of play, Germany has to consolidate their position on G1. This is especially true with the current consensus regarding a Baltic naval build in G1. Germany just cannot risk pressing any advantage they may gain by Russia being a bit weak in West Russia, or they risk the loss of ALL of their frotn line offensive units on R2 to Russian INF and FIGs.
Remember, in the early rounds, Russia is not actually driving for Berlin… they can’t. All they are doing is creating a buffer zone between their forces and German forces with the goal being to make Germany expose its ARM to destruction by Russian massed INF and their FIGs. If West Russia goes poorly, and Russia has fewer forces there, and Germany pushes their initial advantage, they will get spanked. They lack front line fodder, and will take heavy losses of their ARM on an R2 or R3 counter-attack. And once that initial stack of ARM is gone, Germany is not likely to be able to rebuild it in a KGF game.
So West Russia being up a few INF or down a few INF from normal is not as critical as it may appear.
Now if BOTH Russian openning attack go poorly (Belo/WR or Ukraine/WR)… THEN perhaps Germany can be more aggressive and actually make Russia pay for that early weakness. Otherwise, a German press to take advantage of 1 weak showing only exposes their forces to the Russian Meat Grinder.