russia recruits female students and young women into UAV units
russia is scaling up the recruitment of female students into UAV units. While this practice was previously recorded mainly in TOT, it has now expanded to educational institutions across russia.
▫️Recruitment is carried out directly within universities and colleges — through SMS campaigns, notices on screens, and personal conversations after lectures. There are also cases where female students with tuition debt are offered contracts in exchange for debt cancellation.
▫️russia’s ministry of defense claims the contract lasts one year and that students allegedly will not have to fight on the front line. At the same time, the first confirmed case of a recruited student killed in the war has already been recorded. A 23-year-old student from Buryatia signed a contract with a UAV unit in January and was killed in April in the Luhansk region near the frontline.
russia is cynically turning educational institutions — both in the occupied territories and within the country — into a pipeline for replenishing UAV units. A chronic manpower shortage is forcing the regime to lower the age threshold and expand the social categories eligible for recruitment.
The Center previously reported that russia systematically uses the occupied territories as a personnel reserve for its war against Ukraine.
