The losses on the Russian side have not been officially communicated, but observers assume around 15,000 casualties. In order to advance his “special operation”, Putin needs many new soldiers. And they come primarily from remote, poor provinces.
This is shown by an analysis by the opposition media portal “Mediazona”. The journalists there collect from public sources how many fallen soldiers can be identified beyond doubt. A casualty only enters the statistics when his death is confirmed by public sources.
Your analysis shows that more than half of the dead are younger than 30 years old. And: Of the 5,185 soldiers killed so far, the majority came from the Republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus. The second most fallen soldiers come from Buryatia, an area north of Mongolia in Siberia. Many soldiers also came from the Krasnodar region, Volgograd and Orenburg.
However, no casualties were identified from Moscow or St. Petersburg. When recruiting, the Kremlin is therefore focusing on more remote and poorer regions of the country.
Joachim Weber, security and Russia expert at the University of Bonn, said in the n-tv podcast: “The youth of wealthy parents from Moscow and St. Petersburg who are linked to the state are not allowed to die on the battlefields. You get those who, from the Russian point of view, are basically auxiliary peoples.”
“Mediazona” also writes that many poorer young men from areas far away from Moscow are reporting: “The demographic situation, the pronounced attitude towards military service, the large number of military units in these regions, the low wages and the unemployment rate contribute to this that the army is attractive to young men.”
