Otherwise, what is Russia doing with the other 850,000 soldiers?
Mind you, it's always possible that those other 850,000 guys are on landing barges about to hit the beaches in Louisiana. /s
Russia has more than 200,000 forces in Ukraine right now. Lets not pretend that DPR/LPR "separatists" are anything but Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms. Remember the "separatists" involved in shooting down the Dutch plane in 2014 all turned out to be Russian soldiers.
The total number of combat ready soldiers in Russia's army is also far less than one million. More like 400k-500k.
What they do however is rotate them very often. Reportedly they spend a week at a to,e on the battlefield, then they get rest for a week or two, etc.
This way their entire military gets actual combat experience, the troops are always fresh, and the moral is high. Same with equipment, regular maintenance, etc.
Which is basically why they are able to do the slow grind at the pace they want.
Russia's military, of course, noted for their experience, freshness, and high morale. Along with having properly maintained equipment.
I also think you entire missed the tense of my answer, which is that they are _getting experience_ in the present, while staying freshly rested. Like it or not its a fact. And ever since the first week (when they arrested 450 officers of various ranks for a litany of failures), you haven't seen mass desertions on their part.
So yes, compared to the Ukrainian Army they are fighting, their morale is actually very high.
And as for repairs and maintenance, spend some time on Russia propaganda channels. Among the voluminous thrash you can discard, you'll see vids of the various large field repair centers where yes they do replace on the regular artillery cannon tubes and a lot of parts for a lot heavy stuff they have, not including their own ghanima.
Also, in regards to maintenance, see above commend about arrests.
Moreover, according to various unconfirmed but western sources, 4500+ mechanics've reportedly been hired by the Russian MIC last 3 months. They gotta be working on something don't they ?
And again, Ukraine, if look the large amount of defeatist interviews of western and ukrainian leaders (including their chief of staff), is completely unable to do any of that, and is losing badly.
Modern wars are as much wars of industry as wars of logistics.
I suggest this article by the oldest think tank of them all, which you can hardly accuse of russianophilia: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...
It's difficult for me to imagine someone who is willing to do that, able to find them without help, and actually needs to be convinced of anything there.
>Moreover, according to various unconfirmed but western sources
According to a pseudonymous commenter on HN, various unidentified western sources that are allegedly unconfirmed claim that...
I'm not calling you a liar, certainly not - your assertions are so ridiculously weak, it almost comes off as anti-Russian propaganda.
Assuming everything you say is true about Russia, I don't follow what you are saying, if anything about Ukraine's forces in comparison.
Surely, again, anyone who needs to be convinced would have no idea whatsoever what the "defeatist interviews" are.