Putin Wants to Keep Fighting. Who Will Fill the Ranks?
Moscow has to figure out how to replenish unprecedented losses in just under three months of fighting.
As Russian forces continue to take significant battlefield losses in Ukraine, the Kremlin is struggling to plug the gap as Russian President Vladimir Putin remains reluctant to call for a full-scale military mobilization.
British military intelligence estimates that Russia has lost one-third of the ground combat forces it had gathered ahead of its invasion as Moscow’s forces have been bedeviled by both their own operational shortcomings and a fierce Ukrainian resistance, backed by sophisticated Western weapons. The U.S. Defense Department has not seen evidence of a mass Russian mobilization so far, officials said. But as Russia is trying to throw more forces into the fight, it is sometimes bringing in combat groups at less than full strength, including units that took losses in their failed effort to capture the capital, Kyiv.
Moscow has to figure out how to replenish unprecedented losses in just under three months of fighting.
foreignpolicy.com