Residents of Ukraine's largely Russian-occupied Luhansk region report an intense effort by Russian officers to recruit male students at universities and institutes for contract service in the Russian armed forces.
"They say that if I sign a contract and don't get mobilized, I'll have better chances of surviving" Russia's war against Ukraine, said a 20-year-old Luhansk student who gave his name as Anton.
With no end in sight to a war in which more than 315,000 Russian men have been killed or wounded since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, by U.S. estimates, Russian President Vladimir Putin's government seems intent on maintaining or boosting troops numbers.
Eager to avoid a repeat of a 2022 mobilization that prompted hundreds of thousands of people to leave Russia, it's looking to contract soldiers to fill the ranks and help increase the size of the armed forces to 1.32 million in 2024. In December 2023, then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu set a "top priority" target of 745,000 contract personnel by the end of 2024, state news agency TASS reported.
Russian recruitment and conscription efforts are not limited to Russian territory. While it is illegal under international law, the military is also targeting men in the five Ukrainian regions Moscow baselessly claims as its own: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, and Crimea.
Russian or pro-Russian troops drive a tank along a street past a destroyed residential building in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk region on May 26, 2022.
Numerous young men interviewed by RFE/RL's Donbas.Realities in the Luhansk region, almost all of which is under Russian control, said universities and institutes have become prime recruiting sites for Russian forces.
Serhiy, a 20-year-old student at an institute in the city of Luhansk, said recruitment posters for contract service in Russia's armed forces are now "the norm" and appear on walls alongside class schedules.
"We used to joke that it looked like a way of motivating us, like, 'If you don't study, you'll join the army," said Serhiy, who, like all interviewees, asked that only his first name be used for fear of repercussions.
'Soviet Standards'
Recruitment flyers target job-hungry students with promises of free housing, medical care, and at least a month of paid vacation each year. Pay varies according to rank and activities, with a sign-on bonus of 195,000 rubles ($2,150).
To make the pitch for contracts, Russian military officers "specially" positioned near one Luhansk institute approach students after breaks or classes and ask for a cigarette or a light, said Anton, who studies there.
The officers "tell you what a great future you'll have if you go fight" and assert that the Russian Army's contract troops are "treated with respect, valued, and protected," Anton said.
In a social media post on April 10, Britain's Defense Ministry said the Russian military "seeks to recruit 400,000 contract soldiers in 2024." The Russian Defense Ministry claimed in early April that more than 100,000 men already had signed contracts so far this year.
Official figures are not available for how many men in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine have responded to this recruitment campaign.
In January, the Russian government made it easier for men to join up by reducing the obligatory two-part medical exam to a single examination at the recruit's local military headquarters.
Ihor, a Luhansk region conscript who is currently at a regional training camp, said Russian Army officials follow "Soviet standards" and fixate on meeting their quotas without bothering about health exams.
"You come and say: 'I want a contract,'" Ihor said, citing relatives' experiences. "They don't even check you. They just ask: 'So, should I write down that you're healthy?'"
A conscript undergoes a medical examination at a recruitment center before departing for military service with the Russian Army in Kaliningrad, Russia, in 2021.
One mother in Luhansk, Anastasia, claimed the "hunt" for young men who will sign a contract with the military starts with high school students aged 16-17. Holders of Russian "internal passports" are eligible for contracts once they turn 18 and graduate from high school. Registering for military service is obligatory from the age of 17.
In recent months, Anastasia said, her son's school has reminded students constantly about that deadline. To encourage them, she added, the school often holds meetings with so-called war heroes who tell students "how important and prestigious it is to defend the homeland from Nazis" -- a reference to Putin's false claims about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's government.
Anastasia described the meetings as a pressure-free, "normal conversation," but her son, she noted, said the discussion also includes "alarming" questions about whether "you shoot well."
Empty Promises
But if the pitches and posters don't work, Russian officials use other tactics as well to increase the number of male students who sign contracts to fight, interviewed students said.
Under Russian law, illegally imposed on occupied areas of Ukraine, attending an institution of higher learning allows men between the ages of 18 to 30 to postpone their mandatory year of military service. But this is no guarantee of safety.
Students "can simply be 'failed' at the end of a semester because security officials came to the university and explained that they need new volunteers," said Anton.
Serhiy told RFE/RL that the Russian Army conscripted several of his classmates who did not pass their winter semester classes and sent them for training in Russia's Belgorod region, which borders the Luhansk region.
"They are digging trenches there" but "no one is teaching the boys how to fight and survive," he said. "You stand and dig."
His former classmates fear they'll be sent to the front, Serhiy added. Though the Russian Defense Ministry claims conscripts are not fighting in Ukraine, Luhansk residents indicate otherwise.
Anton said his older brother, conscripted in 2023, was promised a year of training but was sent to the administrative border of Ukraine's Luhansk and Kharkiv regions "within a few months."
The aftermath of recent shelling in the Luhansk region
"Daily shelling and constant fighting are what taught him to fight -- not conscription," Anton commented.
Kyiv has urged Ukrainians from Russian-occupied territories who are fighting for Russia to surrender "at the first opportunity."
Ihor said five to seven students in his training cohort also do not want to fight against Ukraine but believe that, after their military service, they will not immediately be called to fight in the war.
He doubts that: Russian officers have told him he could be summoned "at any moment" once his conscription is complete, he said. "After your military service, you're still a hostage."
Contracts don't necessarily provide better protection for inexperienced soldiers.
Anastasia said the son of poor neighbors of her relatives signed a contract when he turned 18 because he wanted to be "self-sufficient and independent."
"His parents did not refuse," she said. "They buried him within a few months."