However, Russia’s effort to recruit student drone pilots is moving toward its goal of having 168,000 drone operators by the end of 2026, according to the Kyiv Independent. In that sense, Russia is copying Ukraine’s success. Unmanned Systems Force which became the world’s first independent drone-focused military branch in June 2024.
Russian recruiting efforts have generally promised that college students will be able to serve as drone pilots without risking their lives in bloody infantry assaults on Ukrainian trenches and fortifications. But security is a relative term, as constant surveillance and the threat of drone strikes or artillery fire have created a “death zone” stretching up to 25 kilometers on both sides of the front lines, according to the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Force in an interview with Ukraine Pravda.
Russian-language news service bbc news identified Valery Averin, 23, as the first known death among the new wave of Russian university students training and deploying as drone operators. Averin’s adoptive mother, Oksana Afanasyeva, was informed of her son’s death in a mortar attack on April 6 near the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
“The boy had been training in a drone for three months, and now we are throwing him into the assault, into the meat grinder, to someone who had never served in the army,” Afanasyeva told BBC News.
Russia is estimated to have lost 1.3 million soldiers as battlefield casualties since the start of its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a report. NATO official cited by news reports in February 2026. In comparison, Ukrainian casualties They were estimated at between 500,000 and 600,000 during approximately the same period, including dead, wounded and missing soldiers.
