[gherkinnn]

Your point about avoiding conscription and using contract troops (mercenaries) or undesirables is supported by War on the Rocks' reporting. And who knows, maybe setting the periphery of St Petersburg and Moscow on fire made the war very real to the otherwise insulated cities. One can hope.

And yet, the lower bound of Russian deaths (not casualties) is 230k [0], a speculated upper bound 500k. In comparison, the US counts 250k military deaths in the European theatre of WW2 and the UK 383k. [1] If true, those are staggering losses for Russia, even when controlling for population sizes. I am not convinced that Russia will buckle anytime soon, even under crippling long-term costs.

I wish for a swift and decisive victory for Ukraine.

0 - https://200.zona.media/

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties