[theblobawakens]

Russia's professional army plus reservists was about 2.1M before the war.

Add 2-300K volunteers who signed up since to replace professional soldiers departing, out of patriotism or because pay was increased 3-4x. Even with all that, Russia still won't have drafted anybody in the pool of about 20M ex-conscripts who went through basic military service in their youth.

They can absolutely sustain that and much more from a purely military point of view. Of course, if you involve public opinion in these matters, 1'000 a day is indeed a bit much for what is not a defensive war.

[some_random]

Over the ~10 years of US involvement in Vietnam, the US had 58k dead and 150k hospitalized. In less than two and a half years of SMO, Russia has had probably around 315k casualties? 61k have been confirmed dead for sure.

The other thing to consider is that sure Russia had 2.1M professional soldiers and reservists, but how many knew how to fly a Ka-50? How many were well trained tank gunners? How many were competent, experienced members of the NCO corps, or well trained and equipped paratroopers, or artillery officers? How many are left, and how many have to have their positions go empty or be filled by someone new without adequate experience?

[fpoling]

It appeared Russia cannot sustain the losses long term. The sign-up bonus for volunteers during the last year increased by factor of 10 from 2k USD to over 20K. Plus Russia has severe deficit of working force for anything that required non-trivial amount of training. They cannot afford a new mobilization wave for this reason.

[racional]

10000 a day is indeed a bit much for what is not a defensive war.

As is 10 percent of annual GDP.