Dilemma of Putin's army: Too many Private Ryans

EVERYONE who has seen the movie "Saving Private Ryan" knows about the "sole survivor rule" of the US military: A soldier can be relieved of combat duty if he is the sole surviving child of his family.

It has often been said that each war is different from preceding wars. The current conflict in Ukraine will be different from all other wars because this is the first war in modern times between belligerents with declining populations. Together with most European countries, Russia and Ukraine have diminishing populations. Furthermore, the rate of population decline in both countries is increasing. I served in the defunct Soviet Union; at the time both Russia and Ukraine were members of the USSR. In both republics, the evidence of this decline was the prevalence of single-child families. (Before my Moscow assignment, I was assigned in Japan where the population decline is even sharper. As in the USSR, most Japanese families also have only one child.)