Russia is luring students with large financial packages to join drone units

Students across Russia are being offered large financial incentives ⁠to join drone units fighting in Ukraine as operators and engineers, while companies in Russia’s central Ryazan region have been given quotas to sign up workers for the army, documents show.

The recruitment effort, which comes as Russian forces continue to grind forwards on the battlefield in Ukraine and as US-brokered peace talks are on ice due to the Iran war, suggests Moscow is diversifying its push to replenish its army’s ranks in what is the fifth ‌year of its war.

But it is not part of a general mobilisation drive, something the Kremlin said this week was not on the agenda. Nor, say top officials, is Russia running short of recruits despite Ukrainian claims – dismissed by Moscow – that Kyiv is eliminating Russian troops faster than they can be recruited.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, told state media on Friday that Russia’s rolling recruitment system, which offers substantial financial packages to volunteers who sign up, continues to deliver. More than 400,000 people had signed up last year and over 80,000 so far this year, he said.

A Russian serviceman holding a drone. Photo: Tass via ZUMA Press/dpa

Russia’s move to target students suggests though that Moscow is keen to ⁠pour more skilled human resources into its drone forces which – like those of Ukraine – play an increasingly pivotal role in what has long become a grinding war of attrition.

Drone operators from ‌both sides typically work some distance from the front line but are regarded as high-value targets who are hunted down and killed if their positions are revealed.