Russian Universities Offer Incentives for Students to Serve as Military Drone Pilots

Russian universities are distributing pamphlets and making offers of free tuition, payments of up to $70,000 and other benefits to students who agree to serve as drone pilots in the Russian military for one year. The institutions state that participants can avoid frontline combat duty in Ukraine. The specific offer appeared on pamphlets distributed at Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

Other universities have offered tax holidays, loan forgiveness and in some cases free land. An independent magazine counted at least 270 Russian academic institutions that are promoting military contracts to their students. The recruitment drive is occurring in the fifth year of the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The campaign targets a population of approximately 2 million men attending Russian universities. It focuses on gamers and students with technical skills that could suit them for drone pilot training. Russia’s Defense Ministry has called for recruits with expertise in flying drones, model aircraft, electronics, radio engineering and computer skills.

The effort comes as the country faces an existing brain drain. A research study found that 24 percent of top Russian software developers active on GitHub may have left the country within the first year of the war. Some students have expressed reluctance to participate.

“No one wants to join.”