Students at universities and other educational institutions across Russia are being recruited into the Defense Ministry’s drone units with promises that often prove misleading. Recruiters offer short, one-year contracts, about 5 million rubles (roughly €50,000 / $58,000), free tuition after service, and assurances they will be stationed well away from the fighting in Ukraine. Observers say many students are misled into signing open-ended contracts and some have been sent to the front, where the risk of death or injury is high.
University websites and student posts on Telegram show administrations arranging meetings with representatives from draft offices and military training centers to promote the benefits of signing with the Defense Ministry. The Russian-language portal Echo reported at least 70 educational institutions in 23 regions are involved in this recruitment drive, including ones on the annexed Crimean peninsula. Nearly half of these institutions are in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
A Moscow university employee who spoke under the pseudonym Yuri said university heads were summoned to a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, who oversees education and science, and instructed to organize student recruitment for drone service. He said there is no single template for recruitment: draft board officials, veterans of the “special military operation” and university staff hold group talks with students, and approaches vary by institution.
Some regional education ministries have issued guidelines for recruitment, and The Insider reported university administrations sending emails offering Defense Ministry contracts. The independent outlet T-invariant noted that recruitment has spread beyond technical schools to a wide range of universities. Initially focused on technical students, then those facing expulsion, the effort now encompasses all students. Universities are said to have quotas and to use incentives and pressure—extra payments for signing or threats to block retakes of failed exams—to meet targets.
Yuri said quotas typically range from 0.5 to 2% of a university’s student body. Administrators who fail to meet those quotas risk being seen as disloyal; rectors or vice-rectors may lose their posts. At his university the failure rate recently rose sharply, and students at risk of expulsion were given a stark choice: sign a military contract to serve in a drone unit or face standard military service.
Promotional materials claim students can sign a one-year contract and then return to civilian life. But Artem Klyga, a lawyer with the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, says those short-term commitments do not match current legislation. He argues the contracts students are signing function as open-ended until President Vladimir Putin ends the partial mobilization; court rulings have supported this interpretation. Russian law also does not guarantee that signees will remain in drone units: if a contract soldier fails to meet requirements, they can be transferred to another unit and reassigned by the commander rather than being discharged.
Support groups for deserters report broken promises. The Get Lost (Idite Lesom) movement, based in Georgia, said students who signed contracts in St. Petersburg expecting to be posted locally to work on equipment were later told they would serve at the frontline as drone pilots. A contract soldier who spoke to DW in January said he had initially been assigned to a command staff position as promised but was later moved to an engineering unit for mine clearance; DW lost contact with him at the end of January and later learned he had been killed in the Kharkiv region.
Yuri said he was unaware of students at his university actually signing Defense Ministry contracts but tried to warn them against it where he could. Openly opposing the recruitment was difficult because he could be reported to university management. He also noted that some students understand that no sum of money can make up for the cost of disability or death. He added that universities are increasingly resembling barracks and said his humanist convictions prevent him from sending his students to war.
This article was originally published in Russian.