Ah, it would have been nice to get OP's perspective on Russian population counts. They've stayed remarkable stable at 144 million for two decades, even though the fertility rate has been long reported at way below the 2.1 that's considered stabilizing. And I don't think Russia is attracting a lot of inward migration.
My intuition is that their official numbers are cooked. Factors that influence the numbers:
- after 2014 the official numbers include the annexed parts of Ukraine
- since 1992 the natural change is negative (with a small interval around zero in 2013-2015), yet the total population was 148 million then and is 146 million now?
- there is some migration but officialy not enough to replace the decline of natural change ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Russia ). The numbers just don't add up, and that's not even counting emigration.
I haven't actually found any credible estimate what the 'true' numbers could be.
And they've recently chewed through > 1 million young men: https://www.dw.com/en/12-million-russian-soldiers-killed-inj...
Have you read the article? It's casualties, which includes wounded. Article mentions that about 100-140k are killed, not >1m
It seems like, in the course of calling out a perceived assumption, you may have made an assumption yourself. I'm aware of the difference between casualties and deaths. My chosen terminology applies equally to both. And I think both are relevant to a number of related stats like lifetime earnings, mental and physical health, family prospects, etc.
War is hell. And I don't think anyone comes out untouched by it. The stats on vets are brutal.
It actually does - migration from central asian ex-USSR republics was and is massive.