Screening of Patriotic Films, Individual Interviews… Russian Students under Strong Pressure to Enlist against Ukraine

R&D – Facing significant losses on the front, Moscow is actively seeking to recruit from universities by any means necessary, including enticing contracts for so-called “safe” missions like drone operators.

It happened one day when Maria Kirsanova lost her temper. Confronted with students who were clearly reluctant to commit to defending the country, the director of the Technological Institute of Transport in Novosibirsk, in western Siberia, didn’t mince her words. “Guys, the homeland demands it, you have to go. You ask us: ‘Will we come back in a zinc coffin?’ But why are you afraid? And who will protect us?” she exclaimed. “You are all cowards,” the director eventually vented. “Taking drugs doesn’t bother you and you don’t fear going to prison for fifteen or twenty years, but when it comes to defending the homeland, you falter!” she added. Captured without her knowledge, this heated exchange was widely circulated on social media last February.

What was hidden behind the tree was a dense forest: a massive, and forceful, campaign currently underway in Russian universities.