In early 2023, teenagers in Russia were permitted to sign military contracts immediately upon turning 18 without any restrictions. Around the same time, “veterans of the SVO” began making regular visits to schools and colleges, urging schoolchildren and college students to go to the front. Then, in late 2025, a mass drive to recruit for drone units swept through vocational colleges and universities: students were promised they would earn good money, serve only a year, and be stationed far from the front — none of which turned out to be true. BBC Russia tells the stories of three students who signed up to serve in drone units and were killed within months of enlisting.

Vladislav Gorbunov, Bryansk region, 18 years old

Vladislav Gorbunov lived his whole life in Unecha, a town in the Bryansk region. According to those close to him, he’d been preoccupied with the war for years. When he was still a minor, he ran the Telegram channel “Militaristy na Meste” (“Militarists in Position”), posting videos featuring Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and writing in public chats about wanting to go to war. One message read: “Everything is shit. I’m waiting for the army and a contract so I can fucking die.”

Gorbunov was enrolled at the Unecha College of Industrial Technologies and Transport, studying railroad construction. He turned 18 in August 2025 and signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry in December. What exactly prompted him to sign the contract is unknown. A classmate said he had been struggling academically. His brother Danat said relatives had tried to talk him out of it, without success.

Vladislav signed on as a drone operator but was sent first to an assault company. “It just turned out that assault troops were needed more,” Danat said. “That question [why it happened] should be put to the unit where he signed the contract.”

Gorbunov’s friend Sergei said he “miraculously survived” his time in the assault company. Only afterward was he transferred to a drone unit. Gorbunov was killed on April 6 “while carrying out a combat mission.” Danat declined to say how his brother died but said the death certificate listed “blood loss” as the cause. Just over four months passed between the day Gorbunov signed his contract and the day he was killed.

Valery Averin, Buryatia, 23 years old

Valery Averin grew up in a children’s home in the Buryat village of Timlyuy. At 11, he was taken in by Oksana Afanasyeva and Sergei Afanasyev. Oksana described their first meeting with her adopted son: “He was prickly, like all children from orphanages. He said: ‘Why does everyone come and look, but nobody takes me?’ When we were leaving, he pressed himself against the glass doors and watched. We rode home in silence for a long time.”

Averin was in his final year at the Buryat Republican College of Construction and Industrial Technologies. He signed a contract in early January 2026 and told his family only after the fact. “He really wanted to serve, but the army wouldn’t take him — they said he was mentally unstable or something. He lied to me, told me he was going off to work at Wildberries [a Russian online retailer]. When I found out he had signed a contract, I nearly lost my mind. I said: ‘What have you done? Where did you go?’ He said: ‘Nothing will happen to me, everything will be fine, don’t worry,’” his adoptive mother said.

In late March, Valery called her and said he had finished his training and was heading to the front. But by April 8, she had learned of his death. “The kid spent three months training as a drone operator, and then they sent him into an assault unit — straight into the meat grinder — even though he’d never served in the military,” Afanasyeva said. She doesn’t know the exact circumstances of her son’s death; she was told only that he was killed in a mortar attack.

BBC Russia first reported Averin’s story in May 2026. At the time, it was the first known case of a student killed at the front after enlisting as a drone operator amid a mass recruitment drive at educational institutions. But the BBC later identified another student who had died at the front even earlier.

Rakhim Abdullin, Bashkortostan, 18 years old

Rakhim had been saying since ninth grade that he was ready to go to war. “Right around when all of this [the war] started, he began saying he wanted to go there [to the front] — to defend it, to keep Russia safe. He used to say: ‘If they’d let me, I would have gone at 16, basically,’” his mother, Elena, said. She said she scolded her son for such ideas but never took them seriously enough — and now regrets it.

Abdullin was studying to be a welder at Kumertau Mining College. His studies weren’t going well. He turned 18 in December 2025 and by early January had already signed a contract with the military. He told his mother two days before he was sent to his unit. Rakhim later said he could have completed his mandatory military service first but refused. Elena believes he was set on joining “the special military operation” in particular.

Rakhim decided to become a drone operator — partly because he thought it would be safer. It quickly became clear he was wrong. ”[It turned out,] they can see the assault troops, too. And they’re right there on the front line,” Elena said. According to her, another surprise, she said, was that he was issued a defective rifle and worn-out gear, so he and his fellow soldiers had to chip in their own money “for military needs.”

One of Abdullin’s friends told BBC Russia anonymously that, unlike Abdullin’s mother, he had never heard him talk about patriotism. According to the friend, in mid-January Rakhim wrote to him: “You know where you can make some real cash? The SVO. The government will even thank you for it.” When the friend objected that contract soldiers are sent to their deaths, Rakhim brushed him off: “They won’t throw you into an assault. I’m a drone operator. And it’s fucking great.”

Abdullin was killed on March 13 — two months after leaving home.