I would bet the K:D ratio is getting really out of whack for the orcs.

it's pretty common for ruthless countries who don't have great humanitarian records to let their soldiers get eliminated even when the likely outcome of the war is pretty well known. More than just the hubris of the leaders trying to avoid accountability for a failed war, it's a way to liquidate competent opposition for the post-war power struggle and to create scapegoats. It also serves to reduce the number of battle-addled veterans who come home expecting pensions and jobs. Those guys often turn to crime and become a severe domestic nuisance when the state that promised to support them in exchange for turning them into murderers for a lost cause fails to do so.

In the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese did this as early as during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The Leadership of the communists to that point was split between pretty evenly between the south-based Viet Cong and the North-based NVA. Even at that point, they knew they were going to win the war eventually. The VC had done most of the dirty work, and would have reasonably expected a big slice of future say of how the country would work after the war. It was ultimately the NVA Politburo that green-lit the Tet Offensive knowing it was a long shot as a military objective, and that the Americans were likley to kick their ass in open, pitched urban battles (they did). The Communists approved it awyways. Why?

Officially, they say they wanted to trigger a general uprising in SV. That never came close to happening, nor was it unanimous at the time that it could possibly work among NV's leaders. Ho Chi Minh himself thought it was a bad idea, but he had been outmaneuvered for influence by that point by Le Duan in the NV Politburo.

But in a more pragmatic sense - the bulk of the fighting in Tet was done by the south-based Viet Cong, who were massacred mostly. 60k casulaties in sustained, head on assaults against every entrenched ARVN and U.S. position in the country. The VC took MASSIVE casulaties, and they were never again close to their operational or organizational strength again. As a result - the Hanoi-based NVA got to consolidate leadership roles and call the shots for the rest of the war and in the post-war government. In short the NVA eliminated a rival while scoring a propaganda coup in the minds of the american public, even though it was objectively a strategic disaster for the communists.

All this to say - it's highly likely the Russians fully understand that they've lost. And that we are in a mop-up type phase, even from the Russian perspective where they don't mind having undesirables and useless mouths pressed into service get eliminated by the Ukrainians. Iinvading again will require a decades-long project of hardware, training and recruitment of an entire generation of young russian men that may not even exist anymore. Thankfully, there doesn't see to be any likely way that this military rebuild is able to happen in Putin's remaining lifespan. There is going to be a brutal post-Putin power struggle that will further weaken their capabilities to invade their neighbors. But that's a long term thing. We're not quite grateful enough to the Ukrainians for what they've done here to neuter the most evil project in the world.

In the short term - curtailing enlistment bonuses and letting their low-value grunts get assploded all over Ukraine isn't a war-winning strategy, but it IS just good economics. You don't have to pay them, you don't have to deal with them returning to become gangsters after the war and it's a good way to reduce post-war risks.

'Going back'. They've never NOT been doing press gang kidnappings. Just getting a little less picky about their targets.

Imagine what quality of a committed soldier you get if that's your MO. I mean - this is why in thousands of years of history, citizen armies always beat slave armies.