that_guy

Of the total population it may be small but the deaths are not a random sampling of the population. They are almost exclusively young men. If we define fighting age as 18-45 Russia has roughly 25 million men. 315k casualties is 1.26% of that population. That alone is a massive amount to lose in such a short period of time. Even before this Russia was in a demographic crisis.

And that 18-45 range is probably too generous, soldiers are usually young. In the us military like 45% of service members are under 25 and 65% are under 30. When you factor in the number of Russians who fled the country to avoid mobilization (~1 million) youre realistically looking at up to 10% of the men between 18 and 30 either dead or fled since 2021.