This is an underappreciated aspect of large wars. What do you do with the surplus army of vicious beasts and their scheming, competent leaders when the fighting winds down.

I mean - it's premature to even think about this war in the past tense with all the suffering, but my cope is to look at what Russia actually DOES instead of what it says as a lead indicator of where this is all headed.

The North Vietnamese, for example, are widely thought to have ordered the Tet Offensive not because they expected it to work (and it didn't). But rather - they had become pretty convinced they were going to win the war, and decided to let the Viet Cong organization in the south be more or less liquidated by a long-shot gamble in an attempt to consolidate the post-war decision making base for leaders in the North.

It worked. They talked the south-based VC leadership into what turned out to be a complete slaughter, even if it was a political success leading to american defeatism. From that point on, not only was america's view on the winnability of the war damaged, but the war-hardened VC leadership was bled white and had choice but to let the Noth Vietnamese leadership assume strategic control for the last phase of the war.

The Russian version will be different - but this story speaks to their plan about how to deal with the monsters you have created. For the lower-funcitoning grunts - let them die. You're already seeing this with the vastly increased Russian casulaty numbers in the last few months. You don't have to pay benefits, and it keeps them from becoming tomorrow's gangster goons who make trouble at home. As for the leaders? Make them complicit as part of your gangster government. Make them fat and corrupt, and at the same time keep an eye on them so they don't get any ideas about pinning the blame for this failed invasion on you.