Russia is casualty averse.
This story isn't about this post topic but is important for the topic:
A recent Izvestiya article observed that the USSR made a priority of showing its wartime allies watching the parade that the “war had not exhausted and bled the USSR dry: that, on the contrary, it had acquired the most powerful weapon – the psychology of victors… An army consisting of such people can be a terrifying enemy and an effective ally.”
Yes, we were supposed to believe that Russia shrugged off 25-30 million dead defending their country against actual Nazis, and would have no problem doing that again for any war of conquest.
Mind you, during the Cold War the communists could have ordered their military to war and counted on their police state enforcing a high-casualty war of conquest against NATO.
But now in an incomplete police state? Not so much as I've argued:
One big difference between Putin's Russia and the Soviet Union no matter how tragic Putin believes the demise of the USSR was is that the Russian people are no longer up to suffering 30 million casualties to win a war.
Putin can try to revive that myth, but it isn't happening.
So Russia uses "hybrid" warfare to perpetuate "frozen conflicts" emphasizing mercenaries doing the actual dying that minimize Russian military casualties, but at the expensive of decisive conquest of territory? I don't think rulers deliberately choose to drag out wars and fight them in ways that rule out decisive quick victory.
But hey, Putin can always rattle his nuclear sabre to be scary. Right?
