[GK3]

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 no where near from 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

True,  but Ukraine is not quite the exhausted German Army, its tanks not functioning in the freezing cold, and supplies running short. So far the Russian attacks do not seem to have caused serious problems for Ukraine in terms of getting ammunition and other supplies to the front.  
Ukraine seems to be well informed about Russian intentions and the old 3 to 1 ratio in terms of attackers to defenders seems to fall short in the current environment of satellite and drone surveillance and artillery pieces who accuracy exceeds the wildest dreams of our soldiers in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam.  Sort of recalls Rudyard Kipling's famous Charge of the Light Brigade.

---

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.

The Russian population is shrinking and half the size of ours and almost a quarter of India's and China's population. Almost makes one thinking of the last gasp of a failing empire.  Either fade away with your nuclear weapons or steal populations from your neighbors.  The first is a non starter for Putin I would think.

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

[GK3]

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 no where near from 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

True,  but Ukraine is not quite the exhausted German Army, its tanks not functioning in the freezing cold, and supplies running short. So far the Russian attacks do not seem to have caused serious problems for Ukraine in terms of getting ammunition and other supplies to the front.  
Ukraine seems to be well informed about Russian intentions and the old 3 to 1 ratio in terms of attackers to defenders seems to fall short in the current environment of satellite and drone surveillance and artillery pieces who accuracy exceeds the wildest dreams of our soldiers in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam.  Sort of recalls Rudyard Kipling's famous Charge of the Light Brigade.

---

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.

The Russian population is shrinking and half the size of ours and almost a quarter of India's and China's population. Almost makes one thinking of the last gasp of a failing empire.  Either fade away with your nuclear weapons or steal populations from your neighbors.  The first is a non starter for Putin I would think.

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