[BostonCard]

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

Do they care?  The cream of the crop is leaving the country.  Almost a million people (mostly fighting aged men) have left the country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_em...of_Ukraine

It's worse than their losses on the battlefield.

One other comment; the sex mismatch is amongst older Russians (40+), so it is not directly relevant to the war.  But if you look at the age distribution of Russians, there's a big gap in the fighting age population:



Basically, there was a baby bust after the fall of communism (those born in 1990 to 2005), who, unfortunately for Russia, would be 18 - 33 now.  Demographically speaking, the Russians picked an awful time to go to war.

BC

[BostonCard]

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

Do they care?  The cream of the crop is leaving the country.  Almost a million people (mostly fighting aged men) have left the country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_em...of_Ukraine

It's worse than their losses on the battlefield.

One other comment; the sex mismatch is amongst older Russians (40+), so it is not directly relevant to the war.  But if you look at the age distribution of Russians, there's a big gap in the fighting age population:



Basically, there was a baby bust after the fall of communism (those born in 1990 to 2005), who, unfortunately for Russia, would be 18 - 33 now.  Demographically speaking, the Russians picked an awful time to go to war.

BC