The Myth of Endless Manpower: Russian Soldiers’ Average Age Approaches 38 as Trends Persist

6 comments

1. Their demographics for the future are in the trash now.

2. The Russians/Soviets fought every single war as if they had unlimited manpower. We see the consequences of that today.

3. China.. waiting patiently 🤤

4. Russia lost a ton of professional troops at the beginning of the war, who would be younger but not the youngest. They then started using criminals who would be willing to leave prison to fight, which are going to be older than professional troops. Normally, you see death figures get progressively younger as troops run out, ie, in World War II all sides saw younger and younger troops die, and casualty rates skyrocket as a result. What this basically shows is Russia is getting away with using older troops and criminals and are still not losing, and they are keeping younger troops away from the front or not conscripting them at all, or a bunch of old guys are overdosing and dying from alcohol at the front.

5. I think that Russia is about to speedrun their way to Volkssturm units. The state of the Russian military is deteriorating fast, with severe attrition of their veteran formations that goes unaddressed while their entire chain of command remain rigid and inflexible. Ukraine is enduring high causalities, but their units retain their battle experience while having access to robust logistical support. This allows for Ukraine to pick and choose where and when to engage and disengage within Russia, thus claiming the initiative.

6. There’s a weird historical memory lag going on, as though the image of the “Russian steam roller” from 1914 is still embedded in the national consciousness. A while back I was listening to Solovyov, and he was ranting about Germany. And he said something like, “What will the Germans do if we send ten million soldiers to Berlin? Or fifteen million?” Where on earth are these 10 or 15 million soldiers supposed to come from??? It’s like they just don’t understand that they aren’t a big country anymore, at least in population or economic terms.