Inside Putin's 'extraordinary' plan to send students to war 'meat grinder'

Lessons have looked a little different at some universities and technical colleges around Russia this year.

The Kremlin, struggling to recruit the soldiers required to cover massive casualties in Ukraine, is now tapping educational institutions for their supply of young men.

Quotas have reportedly been introduced in some institutions, and secret recordings of academic staff and military officials trying to enlist students have gone viral online.

In one recording taped earlier this year, the director of a transport college in Siberia branded a cohort of 18-year-olds "cowards" for not signing up.

She railed: "What are you afraid of? Who made you this scared? Who's gonna protect us?"

"I'm telling you, go [to the army] right now, and then you'll get your diploma. Now go sign a contract."

Experts have told the ABC this "extraordinary" recruitment strategy is a sign of how desperate Russian President Vladimir Putin has become to sustain the war, amid financial pressures facing his government and a resurgent Ukrainian military, which has been retaking territory on the battlefield.

While neither Ukraine nor Russia releases official numbers of soldiers killed and injured, many analysts believe Moscow's army has been shrinking for the past five months.

The country's prisons have already been raided, and the government is trying to avoid initiating another deeply unpopular forced mobilisation.

According to reports, the Kremlin has set a quota for 2 per cent of male students to be recruited to the military and it is offering to wipe tuition fees and expunge poor grades for some of those who sign up.

The independent Russian news outlet, Groza, has reported there are more than 250 universities and technical colleges taking part in the recruitment drive.

The strategy first emerged in December. What some people believe started as academic officials encouraging young men to serve their country, has quickly become coercion.

Denis* attends a university in Moscow and is among those who have been offered a contract after failing a subject last semester. He told the ABC that in previous years, retaking an exam was a straightforward proposition. Not anymore.

"The university said if you agree to fight then you will not be expelled, you can come back to study and the academic debts will be cleared too," he said.

"It's quite difficult to retake any subjects now. It's as if they [the university] just don't allow it on purpose.

"They offered us the option to join the military with some conditions that were just unrealistic."

Denis, 19, managed to exploit a loophole in the system, in which he could avoid signing up by taking a gap year. It required the help of a family friend.

"We found a way, but I know people who went to the military," he said.

"The way I managed to solve my situation was not strictly legal. I was very lucky.

"Before I realised we had connections, I was expecting to have to go to the army."

Some of Russia's top institutions are involved in the recruitment drive, including Moscow's Higher School of Economics, which held a "drone festival" in February, and the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, which has devoted its website to encouraging students to sign up.

'Boys are being sent to kill. It's a disgrace'

Analysts believe Russia is now sustaining about 35,000 casualties a month. Even before this, Moscow's losses were so severe, the war was described as Mr Putin's "meat grinder".

Ukraine has had a mobilisation in force for men aged 25-60 — with some exceptions — since Russia's full-scale invasion began, alongside a voluntary recruitment and incentive-driven programs.

Russia's previous partial mobilisation in 2022 was fateful. While 300,000 men were drafted into the army, it is estimated hundreds of thousands also fled the country.

Keir Giles, an expert in Russia's military and the author of multiple books, said the Kremlin was treating another round of forced recruitment as a last resort.

"I think if it were politically viable, Putin would have done it by now," Mr Giles said.

"The fact that this is still being avoided, even when the Russian armed forces have gone through minor manpower crises in the course of this conflict, indicates what a hard decision it is to make."

Denis's aunt, Maria*, was distraught about the prospect of her nephew, who she raised as a child, being sent to war, and she said some universities were trying to fail students.

"It's happening in basically every university," she told the ABC. "We have found out that the uni is paid money for each person who is recruited to the military."

Universities have been accused of hiking the cost of tuition and reducing state-funded places in favour of giving veterans and widows priority.

"I'm shocked by it all. So many boys are being sent to kill. It's a disgrace," Maria said.

It's reactions like this that have analysts warning this recruitment drive could backfire on the Kremlin and spark rare shows of public dissent among Russians.

The country's economy is being strangled by Western sanctions and Ukraine's increasing ability to hit critical infrastructure with long-range drones.

For many Russians, life has become much more difficult, and expensive, than it was before the full-scale invasion.

Natia Seskuria is a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian security at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based independent defence think tank.

She described Moscow's campaign to enlist students as "aggressive".

"Looking at some of the websites of major Russian universities, we see that there is quite a lot of campaigns online in terms of sourcing and influencing the students' decision to join this war effort," she said.

"This is quite extraordinary. We haven't seen this previously when Russia fought its wars."

Soldiers have been filmed giving speeches to students inside Russian universities and technical colleges in recent months, spruiking the benefits of joining what is officially referred to as the "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Students have reported receiving assurances they will serve in units far from the front lines, and that they will be freed after a year, but not everyone is convinced.

"These contracts cannot be trusted. It really depends on what sort of battlefield necessities Russia will have," Ms Seskuria said.

"There have been a lot of cases where people suddenly ended up on the front lines without having much training, just to sustain the war."

Under Russian law, military contracts currently bind people to indefinite service or at least until the Ukraine war ends, whenever that might be.

*Not their real name