That's what I meant. That Russia had something like 200k troops in this. They are now recruiting Syrians & bringing in mercenaries, so seemingly not wanting to draw down troop numbers elsewhere. If nothing else, they will probably need to quell protests and control the population when people see what's going on.
And a lot of the footage of the captured troops early on, were at most 18 year old kids. Conscripts.
The Russian Armed Forces conscript men semi-annually, with the fall draft lasting from Oct 1 until Dec 31 and the spring draft running from Apr 1 until July 15. In 2022, the Kremlin announced the spring draft early on February 18. The draft affects all men aged 18 to 27 years old, though some conscripts can be as young as 16 years old.
So some of those 'soldiers' are actually kids drafted 2 or 3 weeks ago, probably spent the first week of their 'training' on a train/bus to Ukraine. I can't imagine that the remaining 1 week of training exercises in Belarus is going to make very capable soldiers. It's also come out that conscripts aren't permitted to serve in foreign territory, so the recruiters either made the conscripts sign waivers or signed it on their behalf. And the poor f..ks didn't even know they were going into Ukraine.
Not a very capable army (at least parts of it). Quite apart from the ethical aspects.
