Crunching the numbers
Despite its massive casualties in Ukraine, Russia is unlikely to run out of soldiers anytime soon
Russia has begun a spring offensive in Ukraine, launching a major assault on the “fortress belt” of heavily defended cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. At the same time, a wave of nearly 1,000 drones and missiles targeted civilian, energy, and transport infrastructure across a wide swath of territory in a bid to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences.
Ukraine’s technology-driven tactical nous has enabled it to kill or wound more Russian troops than are being recruited, month on month. But reports from Ukraine’s military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi that the Kremlin plans to add more than 400,000 new recruits in 2026, suggest that Russia intends to continue with its “meat grinder” strategy of attempting to overwhelm Ukraine along the front lines with sheer weight of numbers while undermining national morale by destroying its energy infrastructure.
Of course, the meat grinder involves a high level of casualties on the Russian side. This has led some Western observers to suggest that Vladimir Putin might be forced to the negotiating table simply because his military can’t get enough troops to continue in this way.
The idea that Russia will have trouble recruiting enough soldiers is a hangover from some of its past wars, where the dire treatment of its soldiers and veterans led at times to considerable disillusionment. This idea has been raised in the current war against Ukraine.
During the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s and the first Russian-Chechen War in the 1990s, soldiers’ mothers organisations across Russia placed the conditions in which their sons served their country under the spotlight. Poor service conditions, hazing and corruption — and the state’s failure to provide adequate support and recognition to veterans and the families of fallen soldiers — eroded the image of the Russian military. This led to a breakdown in society-military relations and serious problems in the recruitment and retention of soldiers.
This theme remains ever-present in Western reporting of the war. There has been a great deal of media focus on draft avoidance, low morale and discipline in the field and, the poor treatment of veterans. In addition, the enlistment of people serving prison terms as well as troops from allies such as North Korea and Serbia are also a big focus of attention in Western media coverage.
Advertising soldiering as a “real job” for “real men” appeared to signal desperation, while the fact that soldiers appeared only to be fighting for money — or because they were coerced — implied that genuine support either for the war or the regime was weak. Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny in 2023 was a more concrete and spectacular example of the potential for Russia’s military mobilisation to implode.
Civil society organisations such as the Immortal Regiment, a massive and highly active organisation of veterans, are helping to mobilise Russia’s proudly held military traditions from World War II.
This programme of reforms has been accompanied by work to rebuild military patriotism. Civil society organisations such as the Immortal Regiment, a massive and highly active organisation of veterans, are helping to mobilise Russia’s proudly held military traditions from World War II.
These forms of material and symbolic recognition will not, of course, appeal to all Russian men. Putin has been forced over the course of the war to introduce stringent rules and severe punishments to prevent draft dodging and the mass emigration of those eligible for conscription.
But on the other hand, many Russians still live in hardship as a result of the country’s shaky economic transition after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. For many young and older men in deindustrialising parts of provincial Russia, the army is still seen as the only prospect of social mobility, something that has only been reinforced by the benefits provided to soldiers in recent years.
Given the boost to Russia’s economy provided by the current war in the Middle East, the West would do better to focus on how it can assist Ukraine on the battlefield.
