From the classroom to the frontline – the 18-year-old Russians fighting and dying in Ukraine
Cash bonuses and patriotic propaganda are driving Russian school leavers to skip military service and join the regular army. Some are killed within weeks.
By Anastasia Platonova, Olga Ivshina.
A BBC Russian investigation can reveal that at least 240 Russian 18-year-olds have been killed fighting in Ukraine in the past two years. Many joined up straight from school taking advantage of new rules allowing them to bypass military service and go straight into the regular army as contract soldiers. Some of those on our list were killed within weeks. BBC Russian has been speaking to bereaved families to find out why school leavers whose lives are only just beginning, are signing up to die in Putin’s brutal war.
On 7 May 2025, pupils at School number 110 in Chelyabinsk took part in a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Dressed in tunics and khaki-coloured shorts, the older children paraded into the school hall waving Russian and Soviet flags. The younger ones followed behind – little girls in knee-high socks and boys in smart shirts. The children were also carrying pictures of former pupils who had gone on to fight in the full-scale war in Ukraine.
One of the pictures was of Aleskandr Petlinsky who joined up two weeks after his 18th birthday, and was killed just 20 days later. His mother Elena, and his aunt, Ekaterina stood side by side in the hall, tearfully watching the ceremony.
After a minute’s silence to honour the dead, Ekaterina took to the stage to speak about her nephew.
Sasha, as she called him was a determined and passionate boy who dreamed of a career in medicine and had got a place at the Chelyabinsk Medical College.
“But Sasha had another dream,” Ekaterina added after a pause. “When the special military operation began, Sasha was 15. And he dreamed of going to the front.”
She was referring to the full-scale war in Ukraine, which Russia launched in February 2022.
Sasha Petlinksy is one of at least 240 18-year olds killed in Ukraine over the past two years, according to open source information compiled and confirmed by BBC Russian.
How did someone so young and barely out of school end up dead on the frontline, and what does his story tell us about the choices facing young people in Russia today?
Red lines and rule changes
Since the first months of the war in Ukraine, the involvement of very young people in combat has been a subject of debate in Russia.
At first, the focus was on army conscripts.
Vladimir Putin has pledged several times that no young men called up to do their obligatory military service at the age of 18, would be sent to fight in Ukraine. However, in March 2022, just four days after Putin promised no conscripts were involved in the ‘special military operation’ the Defence Ministry admitted that some had indeed been sent into the combat zone.
The BBC has confirmed the names of at least 81 conscripts killed in Ukraine during the first year of the full-scale war. The Ukrainian authorities claim to have captured “hundreds” more.
The army is no longer sending conscripts to fight in Ukraine, but there are other ways that very young people are being drawn into the conflict.
When Ukrainian troops occupied parts of Russia’s Kursk region in August 2024, conscripts guarding the border were among the first to come under fire.
But according to data gathered by the BBC the way most 18-year olds end up on the battlefield is by signing up as contract soldiers.
In the spring of 2022, the Russian authorities changed the law in order to actively encourage men of fighting age to join up. And since 2023 regional authorities have been offering big cash payments to new recruits.
Initially young men who wanted to take advantage of the new rules, had to have at least three months conscript service under their belts. However, in April 2023 this restriction was quietly dropped, despite protests from some MPs, and now any young man who has reached the age of 18 and finished school can sign up to join the army.
MP Nina Ostanina, who is head of the Duma Committee on Family, Women, and Children, warned that the changes would have dire consequences for vulnerable school leavers.
“Children just out of the classroom who want to earn money today by signing a contract will simply be unprotected,” she said.
“Contract service – a worthy future”
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian teachers have been required by law to hold classes dedicated to the ‘special military operation’. And as the war has ground on, it’s become normal for soldiers returning from the front to visit schools and talk about their experiences.
Children are taught how to make camouflage nets and trench candles, and even nursery school pupils are encouraged to send letters and drawings to soldiers on the frontline.
Since 18-year olds were allowed to sign contracts to join the army, many Russian independent media outlets have reported that schools are increasing efforts to promote contract service.
There are many examples from across the country.
In Perm, schoolchildren were given leaflets with a photo of a middle-aged man in military uniform hugging his wife and young son, and the slogan: “Contract service — a worthy future!”
In the Khanty-Mansisk Autonomous Region, posters appeared on school noticeboards urging everyone to “Stand shoulder to shoulder for the Motherland”.
In Krasnoyarsk a poster with the slogan “Call now” was put up on a classroom board.
At the start of the new school year on 1 September 2024, a new subject was brought into the curriculum.
In a throw-back to the Soviet era, senior students are once again being taught how to use Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades as part of a course called “The Basics of Safety and Homeland Defence”.
In many regions, military recruiters now attend careers lessons in schools and technical colleges, telling young people how to sign up as contract soldiers after they graduate.
In April 2024, Konstantin Dizendorf, head of the Taseyevsky District in the Krasnoyarsk Region, visited a local technical college to talk to the children about their futures. He singled out one particular student for praise. 18-year old Aleksandr Vinshu had already announced that he wanted to join the army. Vinshu was held up as local hero and allowed to take his final exams early in order to sign up as soon as possible. Seven months later in November 2024 news came that Vinshu had been killed.
Counting Russia’s young war dead
As part of our ongoing project using open sources to count Russia’s war dead, BBC Russian has looked at casualty figures from April 2023, when the law changed allowing school leavers to skip conscription and sign up to join the army.
We have identified and confirmed the names of 240 18-year-old contract soldiers killed in Ukraine between April 2023 and May 2025.
All were enlisted as contract servicemen and judging from published obituaries, most joined the armed forces voluntarily. However, 21 were very recent school leavers who signed contracts while they were doing their military service. Families of some of these young men allege they were pressured to join up by senior officers.
Our data shows that the regions with the highest number of deaths among 18-year-olds are all in Siberia or the Russian Far East: We confirmed 11 deaths in Novosibirsk Region, another 11 in Zabaykalsky Region, and 10 more in Altai and in Primorsky regions respectively.
The BBC’s figures are based on open-source information and because not every death is publicly reported, the real losses among 18-year-old contract soldiers are likely to be higher.
However, it’s important to note that these losses, devastating as they are for the families concerned, are still dwarfed by the casualty figures for older men signing contracts to join the army.
From the open source data gathered by the BBC since the start of the full-scale invasion we have identified the names of 486 individuals aged 18-20 years who have been killed in Ukraine fighting as contract soldiers. This compares to 3,703 deaths of men aged 48–50
While older soldiers may face higher fatality rates due to being in poorer physical shape, the stark imbalance likely also reflects a lower willingness among younger men to enlist, even when substantial financial incentives are offered.
This aligns with аn opinion poll conducted by the independent Levada Centre in May 2025, which showed 35 per cent of 18-24 year olds supported the war in Ukraine, compared to 42 per cent of 40-54 year olds, and 54 per cent of those aged over 55.
Taken together, these figures suggest that as a whole younger Russians are more reluctant to participate in the conflict and less ideologically aligned with its objectives. However as the young men featured in this story show, some are still either susceptible to propaganda narratives or to pressure from the authorities
Shining eyes
According to his friends, Aleksandr Petlinsky was a gentle young man who liked to help others. He loved drawing and was always ready to do sketches of favourite cartoon characters for his friends. He was also an active member of a local youth organisation, collecting books for local libraries, going on visits to local museums and organising a meeting with a nurse who had worked on the frontline in Ukraine.
Everyone we spoke to told us Aleksandr dreamed of becoming a doctor, but no-one seemed to know why he also dreamed of joining the army and going to fight in Ukraine.
Was his romanticizing of the war a result of the patriotic education he’d been subjected to at school? Did he really understand that he would be involved in killing soldiers of a neighbouring country. Had he given any serious thought to all the peaceful civilian lives being destroyed in the war?
On 31 January 2025, Aleksandr turned 18. The first thing he did was to apply to take a year out of college so that he could sign a contract with the Defence Ministry.
“When he submitted the request I asked him what his mother would say,” the college secretary later told local journalists. “He said – what’s it got to do with my mum? It’s my choice. His eyes were shining.”
Just three weeks later Aleksandr had already signed a contract and joined his training unit. Just before he set off, he met up with his friend Anastasia.
The two former classmates sat on a bench talking about drawings. Aleksandr drew a torch with a flame on Anastasia’s wrist as a farewell gift.
It was the last time she would ever see him.
Handcuffed and beaten
The story of how 18-year-old Vitaly Ivanov from Irkutsk region in Siberia ended up in the army could not have been more different.
He was born and raised in Tayturka, a small working-class settlement two hours from Irkutsk, with a population of just 5,000 people.
In high school, he and his friend Misha, had worked part-time at a local boiler house and helped dig potatoes in gardens. In the summer, he earned money by taking inflatable bouncy castles round neighbouring villages.
During that time, he met a young woman who we’ll call Alina. They began dating, and Vitaly often visited her. He helped her too—digging potatoes at her dacha and fixing things around the house.
“He used to tell me that I was under his wing, under his protection,” Alina says. But sometimes, when they argued Vitaly would threaten to leave and sign up for the army. “It was like, I’ll go and I’ll be fine,” Alina remembers.
When he turned 16, Vasily left school and got a place as a trainee mechanic in a local college. But he soon dropped out. When he turned 18 he planned to do his compulsory military service and then go to Kazan to work shifts road building, his friend Misha told the BBC.
But in November 2024 everything changed. There was a robbery at a local shop and when the police looked at the CCTV they decided that one of the perpetrators looked like Vitaly.
Vitaly’s mother Anna told the BBC he was known to the police because the previous year he had been arrested after getting into a fight with someone she says was a local drug dealer. He was charged and sentenced to community service.
Vitaly was summoned to the police station and held there for several hours. When he was finally released he sent his girlfriend a Telegram video message, which she shared with the BBC. In it, Vitaly is crying as tells his girlfriend he was handcuffed and beaten up by the police. “Those devils were so horrible,” he says between sobs. “I was just so fucking shocked.”
Vitaly told his mother and his girlfriend that the police wanted him to confess to the robbery. His mother thinks it was the police who told him to sign a contract to join the army. “It’s understandable, he was scared, he was just 18,” she says. “They handcuffed him and beat him for two hours.”
Straight out of the police station Vitaly met Misha and told him he had decided to sign up to join the army. Misha was shocked: “I said, what do you want to do that for?” Come to Kazan with me to do the road building, You’ll be much better off.”
Misha told the BBC another friend also had tried to dissaude him but Vitaly deleted all their messages and cut off contact.
The day before leaving home, Vitaly called his mother, who had left for work.
“Mum, I’m leaving soon.”
“For Kazan? Okay, off you go.”
“No Mum you don't get it. I’m going to the special military operation.”
Anna says she “cried all night”. “He was so secretive about it all. He didn’t tell me anything. Never complained. And did everything behind my back,” she says.
Alina remembers that during their last meeting Vitaly seemed completely calm. He bid her a restrained goodbye to her and told her not to cry. Then he calmly went home, packed his things, and left for the train station.
On the advice of a friend who had already been to the front, he decided to sign up in Samara region instead of Irkutsk.
In the autumn of 2024, Samara Region that was offering some of the highest sign- up bonus payments in the country. Vitaly would have received about four million roubles in regional and federal bonus payments – that’s the equivalent of around fifty thousand US dollars. An almost imaginable sum for an 18-year old village boy with little education and even less prospects.
A first and last mission
By their very different routes, and both just turned 18, Vitaly and Aleksandr arrived at the front at about the same time — in February 2025.
Alina recalls that while Vitaly was still in training, they stayed in constant contact. “He wrote that he regretted it. That he was having trouble sleeping,” she says.
“Mum, I ‘ve realized this is no joke,” his mother Anna remembers him telling her. After just two weeks training, Vitaly was assigned to a role in military reconnaissance.
“Son, did you learn anything in training?” Alina asked him.
The answer was not reassuring.
“Mum, to become a real recon soldier, you have to study for three years!” he replied. “I’ve only learned just a little bit.”
The last time Anna heard from Vitaly was on 5 February. He wrote that he was being sent on a combat mission.
“It was his first and last mission,” Anna says.
On 4 March, officials from the military enlistment office called Anna and told her that her son had been killed in action on 11 February, 2025. He had served just one week at the frontline.
His body was brought back to Tayturka in a zinc coffin. Several dozen people came to pay their respects and then the coffin was taken to the local cemetery.
Officials from the city administration gave speeches at the funeral.
“They said he gave his life for our homeland, that he was brave and went off to fight. The usual stuff,” says Misha. “But everyone was asking why he did it, and saying it was pointless to go to war at such a young age. Many people still couldn’t believe it – including me.”
Vitaly's family and friends did not comment on the fact that his participation in the war could have led to the deaths of Ukrainian soldiers or civilians.
Deeply upset
A month after Vitaly’s death, on 9 March Aleksandr Petlinsky was also killed.
His friends from the local youth movement posted a memorial message online noting that he had “died in the line of military duty during the Special Military Operation”.
“How could he have even been there if he had only just turned 18 a month before???” someone wrote in the comments underneath.
Aleksandr’s funeral took place in the memorial hall of the Russian Railways hospital in Chelyabinsk. “Everyone cried a lot,” his aunt told the school event. “You could hear the sobbing in the room.”
Officials gave speeches, but Aleksandr’s friends “preferred to stay silent” as one of them told the BBC.
Anastasia says they were all deeply upset by the fact that he had lived less than two months after turning 18 and had spent just a couple of weeks at war before being killed.
Aleksandr’s mother, Elena, told the BBC: “As a citizen of the Russian Federation, I am proud of my son. But as a mother — I can’t cope with this loss.” She declined to say more.
The BBC was only able to reach Vitaly’s mother, Anna, on the second or third attempt — in the first minutes of the call, she was sobbing and unable to speak. She said keeps replaying her last goodbye with her son in her mind. “It still feels like it happened yesterday.”
Anastasia, Aleksandr’s friend, says that for her, the fact that 18-year-olds are signing contracts to join the army is now a very “painful subject”.
“They’re young and naïve, and there’s so much they don’t understand,” she says. “They just don’t grasp the full responsibility of what they’re doing.”
Vitaly’s friend Misha thinks the same. He spoke to the BBC from Kazan where he’s now working on the road-building project he and Vitaly were planning to do together. Asked whether he might decide to sign a contract to join up himself he said: “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“No one’s interested and no one cares”
Although the deaths of Aleksandr and Vitaly have deeply affected their friends and family, the fact that 18 -year-olds are signing up and getting killed in Ukraine does not so far seem to have had wider resonance in Russian society.
The family of another very young man who joined up from school and was killed very soon after did try to campaign to stop high school graduates being sent to the frontline.
Daniil Chistyakov from Smolensk, was less than two months past his 18th birthday when he was killed. Like Aleksandr and Vitaly he had just arrived at the front. His family only found out he was joining the army on the day he signed up.
“I wrote to many agencies, trying to reach someone, to get the law repealed that allows 18-year-olds to sign contracts,” one of his relatives told the BBC. “But no one was interested or cared.”
Vitaly’s mother Anna has tried and failed to get the authorities to investigate the police officers who detained her son and who she believes are responsible for his sudden decision to sign up.
In her efforts to “get justice”, she also wrote a long letter about her son’s case to the State TV Channel One talk show Men and Women in Moscow. The letter was sent by recorded mail but no-one from the show ever came to pick it up from the post office.
Russian original story edited by Olga Shamina.
English version edited by Jenny Norton.
Read this story in Russian here.
More lives incinerated for Putin’s misadventure. What a senseless waste.