School-leavers losing their lives for Russia in Putin’s war with Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has repeatedly promised that no 18-year-olds called up to serve Russia will be sent to fight in Ukraine, but a BBC Russian investigation has found at least 245 soldiers of that age have been killed there in the past two years.

New government rules mean teenagers fresh out of school have been able to bypass military service and go straight into the regular army as contract soldiers.

They may make up only a fraction of Russian losses, but cash bonuses and patriotic propaganda have made signing up an attractive choice.

Alexander Petlinsky enlisted two weeks after his 18th birthday.

He was killed in Ukraine just 20 days later: one of hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed in Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine which has also claimed the lives of at least 13,500 Ukrainian civilians since Putin launched the invasion in February 2022.

Petlinsky’s aunt Ekaterina said he had dreamed of a career in medicine and won a place at a medical college in Chelyabinsk, an industrial regional centre in the Urals.

“But Sasha had another dream,” she told a school memorial event. “When the special military operation began, Sasha was 15. And he dreamed of going to the front.”

In Ukraine, the call-up age is 25.

Russia has managed to avoid a national mobilisation by offering lavish sums to men of fighting age – an especially attractive deal for those in poorer regions with few job prospects.

Initially, men had to have at least three months of conscript service under their belts before signing a contract.

That restriction was quietly dropped in April 2023, despite protests from some MPs, so now any young man who has reached the age of 18 and finished school can sign up to join the army.

Russia’s education system has ensured they are ready to enlist.

Since the full-scale invasion began, teachers have been required by law to hold classes dedicated to the “special military operation”, as the war is officially known.

Soldiers returning from the front visit schools to 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 the frontline.

At the start of the last school year on 1 September 2024, a new subject was brought into the curriculum.

In a throwback 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.

Vitaly Ivanov grew up in a small village in Siberia and dropped out of college where he was learning to be a mechanic.

He got into trouble with police, and when he was accused of robbing a small shop in November 2024, he complained to his mother and girlfriend he had been beaten into giving a confession.

His friend Mikhail told the BBC that Vitaly had always planned to do his military service when he turned 18. Then, together, they would go and find work building roads in Kazan, ​​a city about 3,700km (2,300 miles) to the west.

Instead, he signed a contract to join the army. His family have not ruled out that it was the police who “persuaded” him.

The day before he left he called his mother, Anna, to say he was about to leave.

“I’m off to the North-Eastern Military District,” he explained.

In other words, he was heading for Ukraine.

He and Alexander reached the frontline at about the same time in February.

Vitaly’s last message home on 5 February was to say he was being sent into combat.

“This was his first and last combat mission,” says Anna.

The enlistment office rang her a month later to say he had died on 11 February.

As part of BBC Russian’s ongoing project using open sources to count Russia’s war dead, we have identified and confirmed 245 names of 18-year-old contract soldiers killed in Ukraine between April 2023 – when the rules for joining up were eased – and July 2025.

All were enlisted as contract servicemen and, judging from published obituaries, most joined the armed forces voluntarily.

Overall, according to our research, since the start of the full-scale invasion at least 2,812 Russian men aged 18-20 years have been killed in Ukraine.

The BBC’s figures are based on open-source information and because not every death is publicly reported, the real losses are bound to be higher.

By late July the BBC had established the names of 120,343 Russian soldiers killed during the full-scale war. Military experts estimate that makes up 45-65% of the real death toll, which would equate to 185,143 to 267,500 dead.

When Alexander Petlinksy turned 18 on 31 January, the first thing he did was to apply to take a year out of college so he could sign a contract with the Defence Ministry.

Although he had wanted to become a doctor, he also dreamed of going to fight in Ukraine.

The next month he was already at the front, and on 9 March he died.

“As a citizen of the Russian Federation, I am proud of my son,” his mother, Elena, told the BBC.

“But as a mother – I can’t cope with this loss.”

She declined to say more.

His friend Anastasia says the fact that 18-year-olds are signing contracts to join the army is now a very “painful subject” for her.

“They’re young and naive, and there’s so much they don’t understand,” she says. “They just don’t grasp the full responsibility of what they’re doing.”