Since the beginning of May, Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the affiliated Telegram channel “Heroes of the Special Military Operation Z” have published at least three videos featuring Russian college students who decided to interrupt their studies and sign contracts to take part in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. All of the videos share the same style and background and focus on young men from privileged backgrounds enrolled in college programs related to drones, programming, or engineering.
Before publishing these videos, the ministry actively circulated statements by officials claiming that no one was forcing Russian students to go to the front and that military contracts were signed strictly on a voluntary basis.
The first video tells the story of Mikhail Guzanov, a student at Don State Technical University (DSTU), who, according to the MoD, “fulfilled a long-held dream of flying by becoming a UAV pilot.”
“The most exciting part is flying real ones. It’s an incredible feeling! You soar like a bird,” Guzanov says in the video.
The Insider was able to confirm that Guzanov is a 21-year-old student at DSTU’s Faculty of Ground Transport Technologies. Judging by leaked online data, at the time of his birth his parents were registered at two military bases in the town of Bataysk in the southern Rostov Region. Both bases belong to the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade, which took part in the occupation of Mariupol in 2022. It is unknown whether Guzanov’s parents are still serving in the military, although their age would allow it: his father is 49 and his mother 45.
The second video, titled “From Game Developer to Real Combat,” features another DSTU student, 21-year-old Alexander Rybasov. The MoD says Rybasov was studying programming and decided to sign a contract after recruitment into Russia’s drone systems forces began. In the video, Rybasov says he developed an interest in first-person view (FPV) drones while playing military video games.
“There are quite a lot of advanced military-themed games in Russia, and they also have their own ‘birds’ there. I flew them too, so I already have some experience,” Rybasov says.
The Insider confirmed his identity and the fact that he studied at DSTU in the “Game and Applied Software Development” program. Rybasov’s father is also an engineer, working as head of the relay protection department at the Rostov branch of the Russian Power System Operator. His family does not appear to have any links to the “special military operation.”
The third video focuses on Nikolai Ivanov, a student at Tomsk Polytechnic University from the city of Belovo in the Kemerovo Region. The video is titled “He Was a Student, and Became a Drone Operator.”
“I just up and left one day, signed a contract, and then filled out the paperwork for academic leave remotely,” Ivanov says. According to him, he was a second-year straight-A student and decided to go to war because “the motherland needs young, quick-thinking specialists.”
All three students say in the videos that they plan to return to their studies after their contracts end while continuing military training.
As the videos were being released, the BBC reported on the first known death of a Russian student recruited into the drone systems forces in May 2026. The outlet said Valery Averin, a 23-year-old resident of Buryatia, was killed near Luhansk on April 6, just days after being sent to the front.
Averin signed a contract with the Defense Ministry in January and trained as a drone operator. His adoptive mother, Oksana Afanasyeva, said the training ended in late March. On April 2, he called her for the last time, saying he was being sent somewhere “without network coverage.” A few days later, the family was told he had been killed in a mortar attack.
Afanasyeva said Averin was not supposed to take part in assault operations. “The kid trained for three months as a UAV operator, and then they threw him into an assault, into the worst meat grinder,” she said. She also said he had previously been found unfit for military service because of health issues. At the time he signed the contract, Averin was in his final year at the Buryat Republican Technical School of Construction and Industrial Technologies.
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the creation of the drone systems forces in 2025. Soon after, Russian universities and vocational schools launched an aggressive campaign to recruit students for contract service in the MoD’s drone units.
