In Russia, since early 2023, 18-year-olds have been allowed to sign military contracts without restrictions, while recruitment campaigning in educational institutions has intensified. By late 2025, according to the BBC Russian Service, technical schools and universities were actively recruiting students into drone units, promising high pay, one year of service, and duties far from the front line.
The outlet recounted the stories of three students who signed such contracts and were killed within months. 18-year-old Vladislav Gorbunov from Unecha in Bryansk region was studying railway construction at a technical college. After turning 18 in August 2025, he signed a contract with the Defense Ministry in December as a drone operator. According to relatives, he was first sent to an assault unit and only later transferred to a drone operators' division.
“It somehow turned out that assault troops were needed more,” Gorbunov’s brother Danat said.
Gorbunov was killed on April 6 while carrying out a combat mission. His brother declined to give details, but said the death certificate listed blood loss as the cause. A little more than four months had passed since he signed the contract.
23-year-old Valery Averin from Buryatia, a former orphanage resident, was in his final year at the Buryat Republican Technical School of Construction and Industrial Technologies. He signed a contract in early January 2026 and informed his family only afterward. His foster mother, Oksana Afanasyeva, said he had previously been rejected for military service, and that he told her he was going to work for Wildberries. In late March, Averin said he had finished training and was leaving for the front, and on April 8 the family learned of his death. They were told he had been killed in a mortar attack.
Earlier still, on March 13, 18-year-old Rakhim Abdullin from Bashkortostan was killed. He had studied welding at the Kumertau Mining College and, according to his mother Elena, had long spoken about wanting to go to war. He signed a contract with the Defense Ministry in early January 2026, soon after turning 18. Abdullin believed serving as a drone operator would be safer, but later, his mother said, realized such units also operate near the front line. A friend of Rakhim anonymously told the BBC that he spoke not only about patriotism, but also about money.