Fear and Decline in Military Academies

According to the independent outlet Vot Tak, the popularity of Russia’s military universities has plummeted among young people in the wake of the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Even once-elite command academies now have fewer than one applicant per seat. Getting expelled is nearly impossible, and those who leave are often sent straight to the front.

A cadet in Russia is not just a student but an active-duty serviceman. Once enrolled in a military academy and sworn in, he wears a uniform, follows orders, and lives by military regulations. Twenty-three-year-old Denis from the Volgograd Oblast was ready for that, but not for war. In the summer of 2021, after completing his mandatory service, he enrolled, at the insistence of his uncle, as a second-year student at the Tyumen Higher Military Engineering Command School. There, he signed a standard study contract requiring him to serve five years in the army after graduation.

"It’s like a deal with the devil. Getting in is easy – getting out is almost impossible," Denis said to a Vot Tak journalist.

Russia has 38 higher military institutions training future officers. Relations between cadets and these universities are regulated in part by the law, "On Military Duty and Military Service." Under Article 35, applicants who have not served in the army are considered conscripts upon admission and are required to sign a service contract during their second year or upon reaching the age of 18.

According to Vot Tak, after the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, some schools reportedly refuse to expel students even for repeated disciplinary violations. These are typically institutions that train junior officers in the most in-demand specialties during the war in Ukraine, including artillery, reconnaissance, drone, infantry, sapper, tank, and medical units. Legal experts from the human rights project Priziv k sovesti ("Call to Conscience") say such forced retention is illegal and should be challenged in court.

Graduation, meanwhile, doesn’t mean freedom from service. Under Russia’s mobilization law, a study contract is equivalent to a Ministry of Defense contract signed by volunteer soldiers and considered indefinite. Expelled cadets are automatically sent to combat units.

In September 2024, reports emerged that all expelled students from the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg had been deployed to Ukraine. Whether they graduate or not, their path is the same: war. Those with officer ranks have a faint hope that their skills will keep them off the front line.

There are only two legal ways out of such a contract, according to Priziv k sovesti lawyers: refusing to follow orders, which could lead to a prison sentence or suspended sentence, or desertion, which means hiding out or facing a real prison term.

Since the start of Russia’s War on Ukraine, fewer young people want to pursue military careers. Cadets at several institutions told Vot Tak there are two reasons. First, the army’s prestige has collapsed as the Defense Ministry recruits marginalized groups, including convicted violent offenders. Second, and more importantly, there’s the fear of being sent to war.

"In the draft office, they said only 0.8 people apply per seat at the Ryazan Airborne Command School. Has the special military operation really killed the demand? Where’s our heroism?" a user named Nikita asked in a Mail.ru forum in summer 2025. Replies were blunt: "Why bother? To become cannon fodder?"

The decline in applications has hit all military academies. To fill the ranks, universities have lowered admission thresholds and eased requirements for physical fitness, health, and psychological stability.

The shortage has become so severe that almost anyone can become a cadet. Vot Tak reported that some applicants at the Tyumen Command School deliberately failed entrance exams because their parents forced them to apply, but they were admitted anyway.

Before the war, competition for a place at a military academy was 2.4 to 3.5 applicants per seat. In 2023, sources in the Defense Ministry said it dropped to 0.9 to 1 (these figures could not be independently confirmed), and by 2024 it fell to between 0.5 and 0.8. By contrast, the Ural State Mining University saw nine applicants per seat for technical majors in 2025, and 105 per seat competed for a spot in costume and textile design at Moscow’s Kosygin State University.

To address the crisis, the government began admitting veterans of the War on Ukraine. In 2024, they received 10 percent of all state-funded seats, and the maximum age for admission rose from 27 to 30. Decorated veterans also get a 10-point bonus on entrance exams. The changes worked: the number of first-year cadets rose 22 percent this academic year to more than 19,600.

Andrei, from Moscow Oblast, graduated from a military university in spring 2025. He declined to name the school, which trains specialists in electronics, software, and cybersecurity. Now he works in his field and runs an online community for cadets and officers.

There are no official statistics on how many cadets are veterans of the War on Ukraine, but Andrei estimates their share at 30 to 60 percent. He says many veterans enroll not for career advancement but to escape combat or wait out the war, hoping it will end within four years.

Their presence has fueled a resurgence of hazing, once nearly eradicated. Konstantin, a third-year cadet at a southern military school, told Vot Tak he sees most veterans negatively.

"I don’t want to generalize, but 90 percent of them are unworthy," he said. "They skip classes, ignore service, bully other cadets, drink. No one can rein them in. God forbid anyone offend a veteran."

Some cases have turned deadly. On June 3, 2025, 24-year-old Ivan Selin, a veteran of Russia’s War on Ukraine and a third-year cadet at the Ryazan Airborne School, died during parachute training after bullying fellow cadets. Ilya Kazantsev, 20, one of his victims, tied Selin’s main and reserve parachute cords together.

Parents of cadets also see the presence of veterans as a major problem. One mother from Tyumen told Vot Tak: "There’s only one issue, they come back from the war thinking they’re untouchable. Even officers are afraid of them."