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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
World
Niko Vorobyov

Despite huge manpower losses, how is Russia replenishing its military?

Russian soldier Ivan Chenin, right, says his 'love for the motherland' drew him to the military, but others are motivated by money or freedom from prison [Courtesy of Ivan Chenin]

When President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ivan Chenin left his comfortable life as a student in Moscow to deliver aid as a volunteer to the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics of eastern Ukraine, which Russia now claims as its “new territories”.

After returning from a trip to the occupied areas of Ukraine last year, Chenin jumped further into the fray, enlisting in the Thunder Cascade volunteer unit.

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