[nradov]

Well there is Russian and then there is Russian. The elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg don't really regard people from the outer provinces as fully Russian, especially not the ethnic minority groups. They're expendable. Most of the casualties have come from those areas so far but they're starting to run out of potential recruits. If the authorities start conscripting men from the core cities and feeding them into the meat grinder then internal dissent will likely increase.