Kathrine Frich
Young people often feel invincible when military recruiters come calling.
Governments know exactly how to package a dangerous job as a safe, modern adventure for an ambitious student. Sadly, that illusion shatters the moment a new recruit steps onto a real battlefield.
A fatal promise
The BBC recently uncovered a tragic story from the front lines. They revealed the first known death of a Russian student serving in a new military drone unit.
The victim was twenty-three-year-old Valery Averin. He grew up in an orphanage before a foster family in the Far East region of Buryatia took him in.
Military recruiters heavily target young men like him. They promise them a safe, high-tech role far away from the brutal trench warfare.
Averin believed the pitch. According to media reports, the young student told his adoptive mother, “Nothing will happen to me.”
Sent to the front
He signed a contract with the Russian military in early January. After the paperwork, he spent three months learning to pilot unmanned aerial vehicles.
The training wrapped up on March 24. Just two weeks later, the student was dead.
The BBC reported cited by O2 that Ukrainian mortar fire killed him on April 6. His family received the devastating news shortly after.
His mother noted that he never even shared his military unit number or radio call sign.
Hiding the danger
Russian officials run a massive recruitment campaign across hundreds of universities. They desperately want to lure tech-savvy students into a growing drone force.
Ukrainian intelligence claims this branch already has over 100,000 soldiers. Moscow wants to push that number even higher by the end of the year.
Recruiters host campus events and tell students that drone pilots hide safely away from the real fighting. The reality on the ground is completely different.
Ukrainian units actively hunt down the electronic signal sources.
Hunted from above
Piloting these devices puts a massive target on a soldier’s back. The casualty numbers are rising fast.
“Drone operators are being confronted by specialized groups,” the BBC noted.
The British outlet pointed out that those recruitment promises are false. A rising casualty rate paints a very grim picture of modern combat operations.
“Being a drone operator is not a specialty that guarantees survival in war (…) Data established by the BBC show that losses of drone operators on the Russian side are comparable to the mortality rate in artillery units,” the broadcaster stated.
Sources: BBC, Ukrainian intelligence, X (formerly Twitter), o2
