Putin’s war has birthed quislings in Russia’s ivory towers

Russian universities’ transformation from passive bystanders into active cogs in Vladimir Putin’s war machine against Ukraine represents one of the most alarming developments in global higher education since the 2022 invasion.

What began as coerced statements of support from rectors has escalated into systematic student military recruitment drives, with famous institutions like the Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and Bauman Moscow State Technical University now functioning as de facto military enlistment offices. This shift not only breaches the sacred trust between universities and students, but also destroys what remains of academic neutrality.

The 2022 rectors’ letter

The catalyst for all these developments was events on 6 March 2022, just 10 days after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Union of Rectors, an umbrella body representing over 300 university leaders (mostly of public institutions), issued a public statement expressing “support for the President’s position” on the “special military operation”. The letter framed the war as a defensive necessity against “neo-Nazis” and Western aggression.

International academia reeled. The European University Association (EUA), Europe’s largest higher education network, immediately suspended all 107 Russian member institutions, citing the statement as evidence of institutional alignment with aggression.

Universities from Oxford to Stanford severed institutional ties, exchange programmes evaporated and joint research grants dried up overnight.

Defenders of the rectors painted the letter as a pragmatic “symbolic gesture”. Administrators argued it was a necessary evil to appease the Kremlin, protecting faculty and students from reprisals while allowing universities to continue “business as usual” behind the scenes. After all, dissent carried risks: professors faced dismissal for anti-war posts on social media and students risked expulsion for protests.

Indeed, pockets of resistance emerged. At Moscow State University, over 400 staff and students signed an open letter condemning the invasion, while HSE faculty quietly maintained backchannel contacts with Western partners, insisting that “Russian academia is not monolithic”.

This early phase positioned universities as reluctant buffers – observing the war from afar, nodding symbolically to the regime, but prioritising education over engagement with the war. Optimists in the West clung on to this narrative, arguing for selective engagement with individual scholars rather than blanket sanctions.

Incremental militarisation

As mobilisation waves swept Russia in September 2022, universities began internalising the war effort more deeply. By summer 2022, HSE had introduced additional quotas reserving 10% of admissions for children of “special operation participants”, signalling the first institutional embedding of war loyalty into academic life.

Campuses hosted “veterans” of the invasion – soldiers returning from Donbas or Kherson – who shared sanitised tales of heroism. Bauman University launched “Z-brigades”, volunteer squads promoting patriotic fervour.

Professors reported pressure to incorporate “military-patriotic education” into syllabi: history courses glorified the “denazification” of Ukraine, while engineering classes pivoted to drone design.

By 2023, over 50 institutions had signed cooperation agreements with local military commissariats, promising infrastructure support for recruitment fairs.

Administrators framed these as defensive manoeuvres. “We’re shielding students from direct mobilisation by channelling their energy into safe, voluntary activities,” explained one HSE dean in a leaked internal letter.

During the chaotic 2022 partial mobilisation, rectors lobbied quietly for deferrals, arguing that universities needed talent for Russia’s “technological sovereignty”. Tomsk State University, for instance, issued guidelines exempting enrolled students from immediate call-ups, provided they maintained their grades.

Survival tactics or complicity?

This phase tested the “symbolic gesture” theory. International observers debated: were these adaptations survival tactics or signs of early complicity? The answer crystallised in late 2025.

By autumn 2025, manpower shortages in Ukraine forced the Kremlin to target universities systematically. The Ministry of Defence created the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) – Russia’s drone warfare branch, hyped as a “high-tech, backroom” service. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education was ordered to assist in recruiting students for the USF.

• Stage 1: Propaganda for short-term contracts. Universities allowed military authorities to launch campus campaigns glorifying short-term contracts in drone units as “prestigious tech jobs” with bonuses and academic deferrals. Glossy posters and seminars promised “no front line duty, just simulators”.

• Stage 2. Targeting failing students. In January 2026, Novosibirsk State University informed 200 failing students: enlist or face dismissal. MIPT followed, bundling recruitment with “academic amnesty”. HSE followed systematically – conducted tutoring sessions for students in the “academic risk group”.

Universities waived debts for enlistees, turning support into blackmail. This subverted the university’s covenant: it became no longer about helping students overcome obstacles, but about exploiting them as military fodder. Pro-war rectors like Viktor Sadovnichy hailed this as “saving youth from idleness”.

“Instead of tutoring them, we’re selling them to the army,” lamented one anonymous professor in a Telegram channel.

• Stage 3: Implementation of key performance indicators (KPIs). The previous stages did not return the expected results. Leaked documents reveal preparations for a new stage – KPIs for each university and each school within universities.

Bauman’s dean of students received a memo in November 2025: “Deliver 15 USF contracts by December, or face audit.” Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), where an investigation revealed faculty-specific KPIs, for instance, the engineering school was tasked with 10 recruits a month, tracked via reports to the rectorate. Leaked chats showed deans scripting pitches: “Sign up, or there’s no diploma.”

This phase marks the rubicon, the point at which universities transitioned from passive enablers of the war to active recruiters, with professors counselling enlistment over theses.

Deceptive contracts

The recruitment contracts epitomise this betrayal. Pitched as “safe tech service”, they bury clauses allowing the Defence Ministry to retain soldiers “until mission completion”.

The drone myth has crumbled quickly. Recruits signed contracts which were vaguely worded to permit “operational needs” – for example, indefinite extensions and redeployment to infantry. Lawyers from Memorial Human Rights Centre warned: “These are traps. Drone service means whatever the commander says.”

University staff, trained by military encounters, have downplayed risks. “You’ll operate from Crimea bases,” one MIPT advisor assured a wavering physics major. Legal experts counter: Article 52 of the contract permits “force majeure” redeployments. No opt-out, no fixed return date. This deception – perpetrated by academics sworn to truth – represents a profound ethical collapse.

Historical echoes

This development contrasts sharply with the Kasso Affair of 1911, when Moscow Imperial University faculty chose ruin over regime complicity. Triggered by Tolstoy’s death and student protests, Tsarist Education Minister Lev Kasso unleashed police on university campuses, revoking rectors’ autonomy. Rector Alexander Manuilov resigned in protest; Kasso fired him and deputies.

The response? Over 100 professors – including physicist Pyotr Lebedev (a light pressure pioneer), geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky (a biogeochemistry founder) and Nikolai Umov (an energy dynamics expert) – quit en masse on 2 February 1911. They sacrificed labs, teams, livelihoods.

So what about today’s rectors? They recruit. Today’s deans? They make expulsion threats to coerce students to sign drone contracts.

The Kasso crisis birthed legends; Putin’s war births quislings. History treats the former as heroes; the latter will be seen as enablers.

Global academia must recognise that the ivory tower’s inhabitants are not just observing; they are enlisting.

Nina Izmailova is a professor in Russia. The name used is a pseudonym.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.