Buryatia Student Eliminated Two Weeks After UAV Sent To Russian Forces

• 12.05.2026, 20:16

This is the first confirmed case.

Information about the liquidation on the frontline of Russian students recruited into the unmanned troops of the Russian Armed Forces has begun to arrive. The first confirmed case was 23-year-old Valery Averin from Buryatia.

Averin was reported by the Russian service of BBC, which spoke to the student's adoptive mother.

Averin was in his final year at the Buryat Republican Technical School of Construction and Industrial Technologies. It was there that he was recruited into the unmanned forces. On January 3, 2026, the young man signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry, believing he would be safe far from the front lines. After three months of training, he was sent to the occupied Luhansk region. After only two weeks, he was liquidated.

Mothers were told that Averin said goodbye to his life under mortar fire. She is sure that the boy was sent into a "meat assault".

"The child studied for three months on a UAV, and he was sent into an assault, into the meat grinder itself, someone who had not served in the army," the Russian woman said.

She claims to know about the death of at least one more Buryat college student at the front. However, the name is still unknown.

BBC claims that the institution regularly held so-called "lessons of courage" to justify aggression against Ukraine and recruitment. Young people were shown, including drones, luring them into unmanned troops.

Mass recruitment of students into Russia's occupying army began in late 2025. Students at colleges, technical schools and universities were advertised a contract with unmanned troops, promising that they would be safe far from the front lines. Many students were subjected to psychological pressure.