Moscow is relying on soldiers and workers enlisted from abroad to keep its war going

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.