Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-7431988-20130903205525/@comment-32656-20131008091135

Tiny population or not, Local, it's still a threat that would need to be dealt with. Matter of fact, in that era, you could actually argue in a lot of that territory that there was just as many soldiers as civilians.

Yeah, they just slowly conduct a fighting retreat back to the Urals. Doubt they need to go even remotely that far, though. Siberia's an unforgiving place, after all.