[Mick]

While all true, we cannot ignore Stalin's maxim that “Quantity has a quality all its own.”  And we are seeing some of that, in that Russia is sending wave after wave of poorly trained conscripts, which, if nothing else, helps find the position of the defenders, which can then be pulverized with artillery.  It is barbaric and inefficient, but Russia is nowhere near running out of warm bodies.  That being said, something like 80 - 95% of the entirety of the Russian army is fighting in Ukraine right now, so those bodies are civilians right now.

BC

One thing we might keep in mind is that both Russia and Ukraine have very high proportions of women to men in their countries, among the highest in the world. There are 0.86 men for every woman in both countries -- the USA is 0.97 to 1, about average. The other interesting item is that Russia's population has essentially flatlined...it's basically the same as it was 30 years ago. It was 148.4 million in 1991, and it's 143.4 million today. Not a lot of population for their land mass, and the society itself is so inhospitable that it doesn't encourage reproduction.

This all leads to the question: do they really want to lose the cream of their working-age men?

[Mick]

While all true, we cannot ignore Stalin's maxim that “Quantity has a quality all its own.”  And we are seeing some of that, in that Russia is sending wave after wave of poorly trained conscripts, which, if nothing else, helps find the position of the defenders, which can then be pulverized with artillery.  It is barbaric and inefficient, but Russia is nowhere near running out of warm bodies.  That being said, something like 80 - 95% of the entirety of the Russian army is fighting in Ukraine right now, so those bodies are civilians right now.

BC

One thing we might keep in mind is that both Russia and Ukraine have very high proportions of women to men in their countries, among the highest in the world. There are 0.86 men for every woman in both countries -- the USA is 0.97 to 1, about average. The other interesting item is that Russia's population has essentially flatlined...it's basically the same as it was 30 years ago. It was 148.4 million in 1991, and it's 143.4 million today. Not a lot of population for their land mass, and the society itself is so inhospitable that it doesn't encourage reproduction.

This all leads to the question: do they really want to lose the cream of their working-age men?