The prelude to the invasion was a large-scale military training exercise, which included moving the troops and equipment from fairly remote parts of Eastern Russia. Seems like that would involve some assurances that equipment is operational.
Not necessarily. They were transported there by rail. Sure, you need to get them to the point where the trucks could be loaded onto rail cars, but that's whole different story than to be on the hundreds of kilometers long march which is happening now in Ukraine.