> they absolutely thought that the moment that they entered russia proper, putin and the high command would shit themselves and bring every reserves and troops available in kursk, fucking up their current momentum in the dombass, letting ukraine stabilize that part of the front. they absolutely did not. drafted russians can only defend russia proper, so there is basically no reason to deploy professionals (which the russians did) other than maximizing ukrainian casualties.   just train them. the average man in the ukrainian army is ~50 years old and on both sides they're all alcoholics.   ~55k dead is nothing in a country of ~35 millions. even if you assume 600k casualties there's still plenty more cannon fodder.
France