You Could Be in Pictures (Russia’s Elite Universities and the War)

The cinematography department of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) posted an ad on its VKontakte page about “a special group” being recruited for director [and cinematographer] Mikhail Agranovich’s class. Prospective students are offered free tuition starting in the 2027 academic year, provided they sign a one-year contract with the [Russian] Defense Ministry for service in UAV (drone) units.

The students are also promised free dormitory accommodation, combat veteran status (along with associated benefits), and “expanded technical and financial resources for student film projects.” Contract service will be equated to conscription service, the ad states.

“If you dream of studying at the world’s first film school, the renowned VGIK, now’s your chance. Places in the group are limited,” the ad reads.

Previously, the Higher School of Economics announced free tuition for students serving in unmanned systems units and the BARS (“Leopard”) reservist detachments in Moscow.

Russian universities and colleges have launched a widespread pressure and propaganda campaign aimed at steering students toward the war in Ukraine. Valery Falkov, minister of science and higher education, demanded that two percent of students be sent to the army. Students are promised “guaranteed discharge” upon the expiration of their contracts.

However, Artyom Klyga, head of the legal department at the Movement of Conscientious Objectors (DSO), found that this was a ruse. In reality, students recruited for military service are deployed wherever the command decides and discharged only when the command deems appropriate.

Source: “VGIK recruiting students to fight in war against Ukraine,” Ekho, 29 July 2026. Translated by Brokenhearted Alien Bio-Robot from the Future. The emphasis is mine. |||||| trr

A screenshot of an in-house article on HSE’s website touting its rankings.

Higher School of Economics confirms it is offering students a standard military contract instead of regular one-year conscription, says human rights activist

Vladimir Krotov, head of the department at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) responsible for student military registration, stated in response to an inquiry that those who voluntarily enlisted in the army would be subject to the Defense Ministry’s standard terms. This was reported by Artyom Klyga, a lawyer with the Movement of Conscientious Objectors (DSO).

Earlier, the publication T-Invariant released a letter sent to university staff. The document stated that students facing expulsion were being offered an alternative: a one-year contract with the Defense Ministry. The terms cited included guaranteed discharge after one year and service in unmanned systems units. However, Krotov’s response indicates that those who agreed to enlist would be deployed wherever the command decided and discharged whenever the command deemed appropriate. Only the provision regarding financial compensation is accurate, Klyga notes.

The HSE regularly appears on lists of Russia’s most prestigious universities. The letter to staff noted that they are now required to submit weekly reports on the number of military service notifications sent to students.

Source: Ekho/Novosti (Telegram), 23 January 2026. Translated by Brokenhearted Alien Bio-Robot from the Future

How Russians Are Forcibly Conscripted

“Summer in Petersburg”: photo by Marina Varchenko

The Russian security forces have been increasingly organizing dragnets to sweep up potential army recruits. This is occurring amidst a full-scale war with Ukraine in which the Russian army has suffered heavy losses.

There are more and more accounts of these roundups. Mediazona, for example, details how a 25-year-old Muscovite, employed in the IT business in Moscow City, was lured to a meeting with police officers and military enlistment officers through the classified ads website Avito, on which the young man was selling headphones. He was quickly sent to serve in the Moscow Region, despite being diagnosed with bronchial asthma.

The Movement of Conscientious Objectors recounts how the police simply broke into the apartment of conscripts Yevgeny Komarov and Ivan Dubenko and sent them to the assembly point. Dubenko was first strangled, and then, threatened with rape, forced to sign his military service card, as required for conscription.

Another story relayed by the Movement involves a young man with hypertension and anxiety-depressive disorder who went to the military enlistment office to undergo a medical examination and get a postponement, but instead was sent to the assembly point the very same day. Mahmudjon Nurov, on the contrary, was simply detained at the Izmailovskaya metro station and immediately sent to the military enlistment office. In the Kursk Region, the military commissars took an even simpler approach: they allegedly assembled everyone whom the medical commission had declared unfit for service, confiscated their telephones, and sent them off to serve in the army.

The Russian army needs conscripts: during this draft, which lasts until July 15, the authorities have been charged with drafting 150,000 thousand men, and so the military enlistment officers have teamed up with the police to go out and catch potential recruits. The practice is, in fact, illegal, and the prosecutor’s office has repeatedly confirmed this, but the law has not prevented police officers from going to factories and shops in search of young men allegedly fit for service. Fortunately, so far no one has received electronic draft notices through Gosuslugi [the Russian state services website]: they should begin to be issued during the next conscription campaign.

Here is how you can protect yourself as much as possible in the current circumstances:

• Do not go to the military enlistment office in person. Everything you need to learn from them can be done by mail or by an acquaintance with a power of attorney.

• If you are served a draft summons in person (military enlistment offices retain this right), refuse to take it.

• Don’t sign anything and seek legal assistance. You can file a lawsuit appealing mobilization and conscription orders through the bot “I’m Not Going!” While the court is considering your suit, you cannot be inducted into the army.

• Fill out an application for alternative civilian service in advance. Both those who have been served with draft notices and those who have been mobilized have such an opportunity.

Source: “How are Russians forcibly enlisted in the army? What should you do if they try to enlist you?” I Don’t Get It newsletter (Mediazona), 29 June 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

“Defending the Motherland is a profession — a real job.” Frequent TRR contributor Sergey Abashin photographed this Russian army recruiting poster (and several others) in Moscow earlier today.

Convictions

https://vimeo.com/197503611

Convictions, doc, 2016

Password: beliefs

The 15th of May is Conscientious Objectors’ Day.

We started to make this film in 2014 during the annexation of Crimea by Russia. it seemed that by 2022 only the epigraph would remain relevant.

“You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men.”

Watching the first war crimes trial in Ukraine over Vadim Shishimarin, it becomes quite obvious that this war is also being waged by children under the control of vile old men.

I understand how and why Russian guys from the provinces ended up in Ukraine.

Source: Tatiana Chistova, Facebook, 15 May 2022. Thanks to Jenya Kulakova for the heads-up and so much more. NB. This film is freely viewable on Vimeo only today, 15 May, apparently. Since it is a “private” video, I was unable to embed it here. UPDATE (17 MAY 2022) The film seems to be indefinitely viewable, so please take the opportunity to watch it using the URL and password listed, above. An acquaintance described it as “deadly serious and very funny too.” ||| TRR

Picketing in Petersburg for the People of Idlib

idlib 5

Movement of Conscientious Objectors (DSO)
Jan 8, 2020
vk.com

“Done!” An Anti-War Picket on Christmas

Members of the Movement of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service held solo pickets on the evening of January 7 outside the headquarters of the Western Military District on Palace Square in Saint Petersburg. The decision to hold an anti-war picket demanding an end to the bombing of people in the Syrian province of Idlib was prompted by a series of articles in Novaya Gazeta about the actions of the Russian military.

idlib 1

Clockwise from upper left-hand corner: “Bombs don’t solve anything!” “Stop bombing for peace!” “Don’t serve war! Don’t join the army!” “Idlib needs medical care, food, and shelter—not bombs!”

We chatted online with Amir al Muarri, a musician from Idlib, and went out to picket on [Russian Orthodox] Christmas day.

As can be clearly heard in a recording of communications between Russian pilots and headquarters, they say, “Package received. Adjusting course. Counting down. Jackpot.”

They then release a missile that brings death, blood, and destruction to people.

After the missile has hit the target, a pilot reports, “Done.”

idlib 2

“Idlib! We are against bombing. I’m ashamed of my country.”

It is a pity we did not think to write these words in Arabic, only in English.

Read more about the situation in the Syrian province of Idlib in Novaya Gazeta.

idlib 3

As practice has shown, there are always people who start writing comments like “Where is the evidence?” I would like to reply, Do you see microbes? No. Then how do you know they exist? You believe scientists who have studied this question and shaped scientific opinion. It is the same with many other questions. I don’t claim to have researched all the questions in the world by myself. On this particular issue, I trust the journalists at Novaya Gazeta, in particular, Elena Milashina, who has studied the subject and authored a number of articles on it.

idlib 4

As for remarks that the American military is also bombing and killing people, I would reply that a pacifist’s uppermost concern should be criticizing the policy of war waged in the name of his or her country.

Otherwise, it is like the old Soviet joke. “We can also go out onto Red Square, shout that the US president is a fool, and get away with it scot-free.”

Or it is like in the famous song by Alexander Galich in which the narrator reads out a prepared speech written for a woman whom he urgently had to replace: “The whole world knows the Israeli warmongers. / I say, as a woman and a mother, / They must be brought to justice.”

Thanks to Comrade Koganzon for the heads-up. Photos courtesy of the Movement of Conscientious Objectors (DSO). Translated by the Russian Reader