Russia has begun a spring offensive in Ukraine, launching a major assault on the "fortress belt" of heavily defended cities in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. At the same time, a wave of nearly 1,000 drones and missiles targeted civilian, energy, and transport infrastructure across a wide swath of territory in a bid to overwhelm Ukraine's air defences.

Ukraine's technology-driven tactical nous has enabled it to kill or wound more Russian troops than are being recruited, month on month.

But reports from Ukraine's military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi that the Kremlin plans to add more than 400,000 new recruits in 2026, suggest that Russia intends to continue with its "meat grinder" strategy of attempting to overwhelm Ukraine along the front lines with sheer weight of numbers while undermining national morale by destroying its energy infrastructure.

Of course, the meat grinder involves a high level of casualties on the Russian side. This has led some western observers to suggest that Vladimir Putin might be forced to the negotiating table simply because his military can't get enough troops to continue in this way.

The idea that Russia will have trouble recruiting enough soldiers is a hangover from some of its past wars, where the dire treatment of its soldiers and veterans led at times to considerable disillusionment. This idea has been raised in the current war against Ukraine.

During the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s and the first Russian-Chechen War in the 1990s, soldiers' mothers organizations across Russia placed the conditions under which their sons served their country under the spotlight.

Poor service conditions, hazing and corruption – and the state's failure to provide adequate support and recognition to veterans and the families of fallen soldiers – eroded the image of the Russian military. This led to a breakdown in society-military relations and serious problems in the recruitment and retention of soldiers.