Around 1 million soldiers are believed to have been killed or wounded in Russia’s war in Ukraine. In addition to the vast Ukrainian civilian and military toll, average Russian casualties reportedly rose to a new height of more than 1,200 soldiers a day in September. Russia has four times as many men, but a war described by its own fighters as a “meat grinder” is rapidly diminishing the ranks, and using conscripts has a political cost. On some estimates, seven times more Russian soldiers have died since the invasion than Soviet troops died in Afghanistan in a decade.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, formerly Ukraine’s commander in chief and now its ambassador to the UK, remarked recently that in war “the only thing that works is mathematics”. For all Moscow’s advantages, it is increasingly looking abroad not only for weapons, equipment and other resources, but also for fighters and workers to supply its conflict.
Eye-catching confirmation came with a statement from South Korean intelligence that 1,500 North Korean special forces are on their way to Ukraine. Some surmise that they are more likely to support Russian troops than to fight, not least given communications and other difficulties, or that they may be there to learn about drone warfare. Their elite status is probably more an indication of perceived political reliability than how they will be used. Pyongyang has already sent labourers and weapons. Nonetheless, this is a significant step in the relationship. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has said he believes that 10,000 soldiers could be sent in total.
Russia needs outsiders because pro-natalist policies have failed to halt population decline; its median age is now 40. The country has long relied on migrant labourers to fill the gap, but the pandemic drove down numbers. It was short of 4.8 million workers last year. Perhaps a million young Russians have left because of the war, and the military is competing with the factories that supply it.
Central Asia has supplied most migrant workers in the past. But in the wake of the Crocus City Hall terror attack in March, for which Tajik nationals were convicted, growing xenophobia has led to crackdowns by authorities and deterred others from seeking work there. Some Central Asian nations also warned their citizens that they would be punished for fighting for Russia.
Increasingly, Russia is looking further afield. Some migrants are lured into military service by the pay or with the promise of fast-track citizenship. Others are cheated or coerced into joining up. Indian and Nepali workers who thought they were going to work in Russia, Germany or Dubai have found themselves fighting on the frontlines in Ukraine. Around 200 women were recruited from Uganda, Sierra Leone and other African nations to work assembling attack drones in Tatarstan, AP reported this month, where they were exposed to caustic chemicals.
While Russia poses as a friend to the developing world, it relies on expendable fighters and cheap labour from impoverished nations. President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to subsume territory into a greater Russia is underpinned by foreign personnel and workers. That speaks less to the strength of burgeoning alliances, as alarming as they are, and more to fundamental domestic problems that his country faced even before he launched the invasion that has devastated Ukraine and killed so many of Russia’s own citizens.