Ukraine

Dago said

Is it safe to assume the vast majority of Russian soldiers are males between 19-30?

If so, based on the population breakdown that I looked up, Russias casualties are just under 10% of their entire population in that demographic in the first year of this conflict.

Click to expand...

No, they skew older, similar to Ukraine. While they do have mandatory conscription for younger men (18-25), with deferments for education / etc., my understanding is this "boot camp" is largely a joke - even heard this before the war. That they mostly just do some PT, march around, get hazed, and do unskilled / hard labor like fixing up the commanders house. The weapons training is very scarce. You might go the range and actually fire a mag or so, but thats it.

These conscripts technically are a reserve / defense force that cannot deploy outside of Russia. In order to do so, they have to sign a contract. Now while Putin did annex large areas of Ukraine, so they are technically Russia and they could legally be sent there I believe there is political pressure for him not to do so.

But OTOH I'm sure there is a great deal of pressure on these conscripts to sign contracts which allow to be deployed. So it comes down to who yo daddy is, kind of like Vietnam.