“The Soviet Union didn’t take this many casualties in the ‘80s in Afghanistan and they had the twice the population of modern day Russia.”
Russia has already had more killed in the Ukraine, thatn the Soviet Union did in a decade in Afghanistan. The Soviet Military was four times the size of Russia’s today. The Warsaw Pact Countries (like Poland and Lithuania) were on the Soviet Union’s side in Afghanistan, but they are among Russia’s most determined opponents in the Ukraine.
Did they contribute troops to the war in Afghanistan?