Russia Is Winning the Recruiting War. That's Also How It Could Lose.
Russia isn’t going to run out of men. But it may run out of volunteers.
By June 10, the 1,203rd day of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, 999,200 Russians had been killed or wounded in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian general staff in Kyiv.
So when a Russian assault group, possibly from the 3rd Combined Arms Army, attacked toward the town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast on June 10 or 11, it had the potential to achieve a deeply tragic symbolism.
For months, the Russians had been losing more than 1,000 people a day all along the 1,100-kilometer front line of the wider war. The math was sound: the Siversk assault had a chance to produce the millionth Russian casualty.
Sure enough, the assault group—three up-armored infantry fighting vehicles led by an up-armored tank—ran afoul of missiles, drones, and artillery from the Ukrainian 4th National Guard Brigade. More than a dozen Russian troops leaped off their damaged vehicles, only to come under fire from more drones and artillery.
As the smoke cleared, it’s possible the millionth Russian casualty lay on that shell-pocked field outside Siversk.
Incredibly, it meant almost nothing.
Hate we are required to link out to read the article.
The more the Russians recruit for their stalemated war, the closer to the red their economy becomes because of their reported $30,000 sign on bonuses and the amounts paid out to widows combined with western sanctions.
Simultaneously, the Russian population bomb gets bigger as it loses a generation of young men, either dead or fled overseas to avoid the draft. And those who have fled overseas are those who can afford to - the educated and well off - so Russia Is losing its talent as well.