Dictators have always been paranoid about everyone else, this is why they are always extremely careful about personal protection.
What you dont appreciate is that Russia is a multi tiered society. Im not denying a small number of thousand European Russians have died, but the only cities or peoples that Putin fears are Moscow and St P. So far only a few thousnad have died from there and basically everyone in those cities knows they are effectively spared from being forced into the army.
Most of the dead and fighting are from places you and me have never heard of, that is cities and towns and regions filled with the many other non European peoples that are under Russia. Russia is a land of over a 100 peoples, there are dozens if not more different cultures and languages. Those are the people being killed.
The European type Russians in Moscow and St P know this, and they wont dare protest because they are not the wons dying.