Russian President Vladimir Putin reacts during the Summit of Commonwealth States, on December 22, 2025 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Vladimir Putin is allegedly relying on recruiting ethnic minorities from Russia’s poor regions to prop up his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian president has been pushing his forces forward into Ukraine for almost four years now, and has racked up a staggering number of losses while doing so.

The Russian army surpassed one million casualties in June, according to western estimates.

The overall number of Russian fatalities is estimated to be five times higher than the combined death toll from all Soviet and Russian wars between the end of World War 2 and the start of the Ukraine war in 2022.

According to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD),........

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