Report: Russian military recruiters pressure underage college students to pledge future enlistment

Underage college students in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai are being recruited to sign statements pledging to enlist with the Defense Ministry in the future, Molnia, a project that defends students’ rights, reported.

Military personnel have been visiting schools to promote service in drone warfare units and pulling students aside for one-on-one conversations, where they offer contracts to sign.

Students under 18 are being asked to write a letter addressed to the head of the contract service selection office in Krasnodar. The document, a photo of which Molnia published, requests that paperwork be drawn up to enlist the student as a volunteer and includes the phrase “I pledge to sign a contract.”

The statement itself does not commit a student to going to war, but could make it easier to formalize a contract later and increases the risk of pressure and manipulation, Molnia wrote. The document has no legal force, but a student “may be left with the false impression that backing out is no longer possible,” the project wrote.

The recruitment of Russian students for the war in Ukraine came to light in late 2025. Students are being pressured and persuaded through various means to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry, with promises of one-year service in drone warfare units and “special terms.”

Human rights activists note that recruiters cannot provide such guarantees, and that students are being made to sign standard contracts that are nearly impossible to terminate before the war ends. Russia’s Defense Ministry has effectively confirmed this.

The authorities have set Russian universities a quota for recruiting contract soldiers for the war — 2 percent of their student enrollment, according to the independent Russian political newsletter Faridaily. That amounts to around 44,000 people, a figure that rises to 76,000 when vocational colleges are included.