I don't find that surprising though.
For me this is one of those very clear differences in policy in democracies vs dictatorships, and it's born out of pure utility.
In a democracy it is very important to protect and preserve your troops. They vote, their family votes, their friends vote, to not care for them demonstrates to the voting populace that the government isn't caring for voters. That's political suicide, or at least immensely problematic to the key concern of politicians; retaining power. A democratic system therefore has no choice but to "Leave No Man Behind" even when a cold calculation of cost / benefit might justify doing so, and even if the leaders in charge don't truly care any more or any less than dictators do. It's just good politics... in a democracy.
But in a dictatorship, this incentive isn't there, or not nearly to the same degree. The survival or death of conscripts from some far flung province has basically zero bearing on Putin's ability to retain power. So why waste resources on retrieving them, unless of course you feel you're getting more utility from doing so vs letting them die? A dead solider isn't going to spark civil unrest (especially if you can suppress the information of his passing), a living, wounded one talking to his family and friends back home might well be. Not saving them is just good politics... in a dictatorship.
The death of sons of the 'in group' might be problematic, as might the death of the sons of people in close enough proximity to that 'in group' to make their displeasure evident, which goes some way towards explaining why he's not drawing troops from the vicinity of Moscow.
It's a horrible topic in practice, but it's still a fascinating insight into the levers of power and their impact on political policy at the macro and micro level.
What is also quite interesting in this space is to look at the impact of natural disasters and death counts. You'll see the same forces in play with stuff like building codes in earthquake zones in democratic vs dictatorial systems (and therefore death tolls for similar events in different nations, even controlling for per capita GDP), or in responses to Tsunamis, or Hurricanes in these systems.
Democratic leaders do everything they can to prevent deaths. Not doing so measurably increases their chances of losing power, so they're incentivized to care. Dictators do not, because deaths don't hurt them, whilst expending the same effort on suppression of the populace and bribing the in-group benefits them. Hence, they're incentivized not to care.
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