Buryatia shows what happens when Russia runs out of volunteers

Nikita Malyshev signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry on April 8, the day after his 18th birthday. A little more than two months later, he was dead, becoming the youngest known Russian serviceman killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Malyshev came from Buryatia, a remote Russian republic in eastern Siberia that has supplied some of the highest numbers of contract soldiers and suffered some of the highest losses of any region since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Days afte ...