The latest installment of the Russian-Ukrainian war – the operation of the Armed Forces Ukrainy (ZSU) in Kursk region – confirms that Putin's army operates in a “short blanket” reality. Ukrainians entered Russia like butter, facing small, poorly equipped units, most of whose personnel had dispersed or surrendered to the attackers.
As I write these words – more than a week after the beginning of the Kursk operation – the Russians are still struggling to gather forces that could stop the ZSU and then move on to a counterattack. The nominally large army doesn't really have anyone (or anything) to send into battle on its own territory (!), so it throws in “green” conscripts and “nibbles” at other sections of the front, risking weakening its own lines.
So what about this “human wealth”?
Combat readiness restoration
Let's first look at the current capabilities – of both sides, for a more complete picture of the situation. In mid-2024, the army of the Russian Federation had under arms one million one hundred thousand peopleof which 570 thousand were involved in Ukraine (and indirectly – to “serve” the conflict from the Russian territory – another 130 thousand).
At that time, ZSU counted 600 thousand soldiersThe front (understood as the direct line of contact) absorbed only a part of these forces – at any given time 150-180 thousand soldiers from both armies. The rest rested, constituted a reserve, trained, served in support units.
What is important is that personnel levels are fluid. Warring armies are forced to constantly replace personnel (in military nomenclature this is called restoring combat readiness) – people die, are wounded or temporarily excluded from combat due to their mental state and physical “wear and tear”.
The Nature of War it therefore rewards more populated countriesespecially in the realities of long-term, high-intensity conflicts.
The fact that quantitative potentials are balanced on the line of contact is enough for Ukraine to survive so far. The point is that balancing in the long run will be an unbearable challenge, because the disproportion in human mobilization resources is glaring.
In 2022, the population of Ukraine was 41 million peopleaccording to available data, at the end of 2023 only 29 million people. The missing 12 million are primarily refugees and residents of occupied territories. The basic recruitment base has thus been reduced, and the unfavorable proportion in relation to Russian resources has worsened – in February 2022 it was 1:3.5, in 2023 1:5.
Poor health condition
But does this provide a basis for the claim that Russian reserves are supposedly inexhaustible? Based – and this is worth emphasizing – mainly on the still vivid analogy with the capabilities of the USSR.
Even before the outbreak of the full-scale war, there were far fewer Russian men than Russian women – for every hundred women there were fewer than 90 men. This is an exceptionally disadvantageous proportion (in Poland It is 100:96 and does not differ from the average for developed countries), which in practice meant that in Russia there were just over 64 million men.
How many of them were suitable for conscription? According to the report UN World Population Prospects in 2020 in the Federation was 14.25 million men of military age (18-40 years old). At that time, it was predicted that in 2025 this number would drop to 11.55 million, and in 2030 to 11.23 million.
Along the way, however, there was a pandemic (which killed over a million Russians), then an exodus of potential recruits (another million people), and terrible losses on the front (today estimated at 600-700 thousand dead and wounded). But we also had an administrative procedure, consisting in raising the upper age limit for conscription by five yearswhich made it possible to eliminate the gaps.
However, let's not forget about poor health condition Russian society. This is a topic for a separate text, for the purposes of this one it is enough to say that the average life expectancy of a Russian man today is 64 lata – a dozen or so fewer than in developed countries. Of course, younger people fight, but the average is the result of the conditions in which these younger people live – many of them are simply not suited for the army.
According to unofficial data, despite the moderate standards, as many as one third of potential recruits are rejected for health reasons.
In addition, the several million potential soldiers are a group that is largely identical to the pool of people of working age. The Russian economy is ineffectivein many areas outdatedhowever, it is still based on industry and services that require a skilled workforce.
The USSR economy in 1941 – despite earlier, intensive industrialization – was based on agricultureand it was struggling with the problem of huge hidden unemployment.
In the reality of the oversupply of hands for labor, the mass mobilization of collective farm peasants did not affect the efficiency of agricultural production and the economy as a whole. Meanwhile, Russia has such unused resources there is not muchso it cannot keep recruiting new generations of men to the army indefinitely.
(Not so) grim conclusions
For the sake of clarity, let's take a look at what it looks like on the other side.
When the invasion began, Ukrainian men aged 18-60 were taken over ban on leaving the country. There were exemptions (for example, for fathers of three children), and there was the phenomenon of illegal departures, but four-fifths of the refugees were women, children and the elderly. The government in Kiev does not publish data on the age and gender structure of “its” population. However, the assumption that men are overrepresented in the 29 million community seems correct.
This is confirmed by the results of the recent mandatory registration of recruits – it turns out that there are over three million men of military agenot yet included in the mobilization. So there is still someone to fight for, without resorting to the drastic measure of conscripting more women, children and the elderly.
But for how long? In the fall of 2023, Ukrainian losses reached a level of about 20k per month – killed, wounded and for various reasons incapable of fighting. Russian numbers reached one thousand killed and wounded per day in November 2023. They still remained higher than Ukrainian numbers, a trend observed since the beginning of the full-scale war.
In the spring of 2024, Ukrainian losses started to fall and today they remain at the level of 250-300 eliminated from the fight. Russians have increased slightly. The proportion of three (or even four) Russians killed and wounded to one Ukrainian remains unfavorable for Ukraine.
The gloomy conclusions drawn from the comparison of population potentials do not have to be binding, however. And the demographic key is not at all the answer to the question of who will win in a prolonged war. Ten times smaller Vietnam finally defeated the USA in the mid-1970s, the Western coalition forces – nominally half as large – crushed the army Saddam Hussein during the second “Desert Storm” in 2003.
Tiny Afghanistan humiliated the huge Soviet empire in the 1980s, and the 70 million Germany In two years, the Nazis conquered a piece of Europe, inhabited by 150 million people (we all know the ending, but let's assume that this story ends in the spring of 1941).
From these examples we can see that there are more important variables. Apart from “demographic mass”, what counts technological and organizational advantage, determination (understood as the will to fight), industrial base or finally powerful allieswho do not have to be directly involved in military operations to have a significant or even decisive influence on them.