Turned 18, went to war against Ukraine and died immediately. Four stories from Russia

From school to war

On May 7, 2025, a celebration dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War was held in the meeting hall of school number 110 in Chelyabinsk. Dressed in khaki leggings and pants, the students brought Russian and Soviet flags into the hall. The formation was led by a young man in a camouflage suit and a beret.

They were followed by younger children - girls in white knee-highs and boys in elegant T-shirts. They brought out several portraits of high school graduates who had fought in Ukraine. The youngest of them was Alexander Petlinsky. He signed a contract right after he turned 18.

Petlinsky's mother and aunt were sitting in the hall. Katarina, Alexander's aunt, a slender blonde in a pantsuit, came on stage after a minute of silence for the dead.

Alexander, she said, was very conscientious and full of enthusiasm. In her speech, she called the soldier "a boy." He dreamed of becoming a doctor and enrolled in the Chelyabinsk Medical Faculty.

Katarina said that he was very inspired by the internship in the perinatal center and the cesarean section operation he saw there - "how children are born."

"But Sasha had another dream," Katarina added after a pause. "When the special military operation began, Saša was 15 years old. And he dreamed of going to the front." (The Russian authorities call the war in Ukraine, which they launched in February 2022, a special military operation).

Petlinski's mother, Elena, a middle-aged woman with short gray hair, stood quietly next to her sister, barely holding back tears.

"Kids today want to earn money"

Since the first months of the war in Ukraine, the participation of young people in combat operations has begun to raise many questions in Russian society.

 

Initially, the focus was on conscripts. Vladimir Putin has stated several times that there are no conscripts in Ukraine and that the authorities do not plan to involve them in the war.

He first made such a statement on March 5, 2022.

Based on open sources, the Russian Air Force published the names of 81 conscripts who died in the first year of the invasion.

The Russian authorities continued to insist that conscripts no longer participate in combat operations - until August 2024. Then, during the attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the Kursk region of Russia, conscripts assigned to guard the border were among the first to be attacked.

However, the Russian authorities no longer sent conscripts to the territory of Ukraine - this became a red line that they are not yet ready to cross after 2022. But young people are still wanted at the front.

Since the spring of 2022, the Russian authorities have been trying to actively recruit contract soldiers for the war - initially focusing on the ideological component and benefits. From 2023, the authorities of the Russian regions began to systematically increase payments for signing contracts in order to attract new people to the army.

Under the legislation that was in effect in 2022, to sign the contract, an 18-year-old teenager had to serve at least three months in the military or finish a technical school. In the summer of 2022, the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, Andrej Kartapolov, proposed the abolition of these restrictions.

The BBC was the first to draw attention to the amendments under discussion. These innovations particularly angered Nina Ostanina, the chairwoman of the Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children: “Schoolchildren who want to earn money under a contract today will simply be unprotected,” Ostanina said.

After the news spread, the amendments were withdrawn from consideration, and Ostanina, citing Volodin’s assurances, was pleased that they would not be “in the near future.”

But in April 2023, these amendments were adopted. Now, to conclude a contract, it is enough to graduate from high school and become an adult.

 

“A worthy future” and “call now”

 

From the very beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian schools actively began to tell children about the war. In the spring of 2022, the Ministry of Education recognized that teachers should regularly hold classes with schoolchildren dedicated to discussing the SVO. Gradually, veterans of the war against Ukraine began to come to schools.

 

Schoolchildren, even kindergarten students, are getting involved in sending letters and drawings to Russian soldiers stationed in Ukraine. In some schools, children, under the guidance of teachers, are knitting camouflage nets and making candles for trenches.

After the adoption of the law on allowing contracting immediately after adulthood, propaganda for contract service in Russian schools has intensified. The publication "Important Stories" was the first to draw attention to this.

In Perm, schoolchildren were given brochures advertising military service: on the cover, a middle-aged man in military uniform hugs his wife and young son. "Contract service is a worthy future!", the leaflet reads.

In April 2024, the head of the Tasiivsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Konstantin Dizendorf, addressed the students of the technological faculty. He summoned 18-year-old Alexander Vinsh to the board. The student decided to sign the contract, and Dizendorf set him as an example to others. The faculty administration allowed Vinsh to take his final exams early in order to enter the service. He died in November 2024.

In total, according to the BBC, 240 18-year-old soldiers died in the war in Ukraine from April 2023 to May 2025. All of them were registered as contract soldiers.

Judging by the published obituaries, most of them joined the armed forces voluntarily. 21 yesterday's schoolchildren signed the contract, since they were already on conscription. According to relatives of some of the deceased, the young men were forced to sign the contract under pressure from officers.

The largest number of 18-year-old contract soldiers killed was recorded in the Novosibirsk region and the Transbaikal region (11 people each), followed by the Altai and Primorsky regions (10 people each).

All these figures are only data confirmed from open sources. The real losses among 18-year-old contract soldiers are much higher.

"Eyes were burning"

Alexander Petlinsky, his girlfriend Anastasia recalls in an interview with the BBC, not only dreamed of becoming a doctor, but also loved drawing.

Alexander was in the "Movement of the Firsts" - a youth organization called "new pioneers".

"He dreamed of going to the front [...] He trained, played sports, went to the shooting range, learned to shoot accurately," said Alexander's aunt at a school event in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Victory.

His relatives and friends have not said what Petlinski thinks about the need to kill soldiers of a neighboring country at the front and about the destruction that the war will cause to civilians in Ukraine.

On January 31, 2025, Aleksandar Petlinski turned 18. After coming of age, the young man took a leave of absence from college and announced that he would sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense.

"When I was writing the application for "academic", I asked, "What will my mother think?" He said, "And what about my mother? I made a choice." His eyes were burning," the secretary of the medical faculty, who accepted Alexander's application for academic leave, told reporters.

By February 18, 2025, Alexander had already signed the contract and went to the training unit.

"I'll go there and everything will be fine"

18-year-old Vitaly Ivanov from the Irkutsk region is the complete opposite of Alexander Petlinsky. Vitaly was born and raised in Taiturka, Irkutsk Oblast - a small working-class village two hours' drive from Irkutsk, home to only 5,000 people.

While he was still in high school, he and his friend Miško started working part-time in a coal-fired boiler house and dug potatoes in vegetable gardens, and in the summer another type of income appeared: he drove trampolines to neighboring villages, sold tickets and kept order.

During this summer part-time job, Vitaly met Alina (name changed) in the neighboring village. The young people began to meet, and Vitaly periodically went to see the girl. He also helped her: he dug potatoes in the dacha and did some repairs

"He always told me that I was under his wing, under his protection," Alina recalls. True, when they had an argument, Vitaly used to start threatening: "I'll sign the contract. I'll go there and everything will be fine," Alina recalls.

After ninth grade, Vitaly enrolled in college in a neighboring town to study to be a mechanic, but dropped out. After coming of age, he planned to do his military service and start working with a friend on a road construction shift in Kazan, his friend Mikhail told the BBC.

In November 2024, a household chemicals store was robbed in Taiturka. Mikhail and Alina say police reviewed surveillance camera footage and one of the robbers reminded them of Vitaly.

 

By then, he was already in the spotlight of the local police: even before he was an adult, he was detained for a fight. Vitaly's mother, Anna, says that her son got into a fight with a man who was making book marks with drugs. As a result, Vitaly was detained, a criminal case was opened, and the court sentenced him to forced labor as punishment.

After watching the camera footage, the police summoned Vitaly to the police station, where he spent several hours. Immediately after leaving, he sent the video to Alina via Telegram.

"It was **** [complete horror]. [I] was taken to the Regional Police Department. They handcuffed me. And when they started... terribly *** [terrible], I was in *** [shock] - they beat me up."

Vitaly complained to Alina and her mother that he had been beaten up at the police station to make him confess to the theft. Vitaly's relatives do not rule out the possibility that the police could have "persuaded" Vitali to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense.

"Of course, the boy was scared, the boy is 18 years old. They just handcuffed him and pushed him for two hours," says Ana.

Immediately after leaving the station, Vitaly told Mihailo that he had finally decided to sign the contract. "But why do you need this?" asked a friend. "You better go on duty with me." Our other friend also refused, and deleted all correspondence with him. And he didn't tell us anything else," recalls Mihail.

Vitaly Ivanov complained that he had been beaten at the police station to force him to confess to theft.

The day before leaving home, Vitaly called his mother, who had gone to work for a day:

— Mom, I'm leaving soon.

— On duty? Well, go.

— Mom, you don't understand. I'm going to the SVO.

Anna says that the next night she "cried".

"He's like that, a child. He didn't say anything. He never complained. And he did everything quietly, secretly from me," Anna explains.

Alina recalls that during their last meeting, Vitaly did not seem at all worried.

 

He discreetly said goodbye to the girl, told her not to cry, calmly went home, collected his things and went to the station. He decided, on the advice of a friend who had been to the war, to sign the contract not in the Irkutsk region, but in Samara.

It was in the Samara region that some of the highest payments in Russia for concluding a military service contract were established in the fall of 2024. The total bonus - taking into account regional and federal payments - amounted to four million rubles. In 2025, the amount of the payment was slightly reduced.

"Mom, I understand, this is not a joke"

Eighteen-year-old Vitaly and Alexander went to the front at about the same time - in February 2025.

Alina recalls that she and Vitaly, while he was in training, constantly communicated. He wrote that he regretted it. That he had problems sleeping, - says the girl.

"Mom, I understand that this is all no joke," - Anna recounts conversations with her son. She says that during the two-week training, Vitaly received the specialty of military intelligence.

- Son, did you learn anything in training?

— Mom, to become a scout, you have to study for three years! But I learned a little.

Vitaly last called on February 5 and wrote that he was being sent on a combat mission.

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

On March 4, Anna received a call from the military commissar and was informed that her son had died in the war on February 11, 2025.

Soon his body was brought to Taiturk. Several dozen people gathered to say goodbye. The zinc coffin with the 18-year-old contract soldier, who had fought for only a week, was placed near his house and then taken to the cemetery.

City administration officials spoke at Vitaly’s farewell.

"They said he gave his life for our homeland, he wasn't afraid, he left. And so on," recalls Mihailo.

But Vitaly's relatives, according to Mihailo, were talking about something else: "Everyone says he went [to fight] for nothing. Why? He's so young. Many didn't believe it at first. And I didn't believe it at first either."

 

Vitaly's relatives and friends did not comment on the fact that the young man's participation in the war could have led to the death of soldiers or civilians in Ukraine.

"The hall was buzzing"

Alexander Petlinsky died in the war a month after Vitaly's death - on March 9. He was "a machine gunner mechanic and was killed by a mortar shell," his aunt Katarina said at a school party.

"A student of the Chelyabinsk Medical Faculty died while performing his military duty during the Special Military Operation," Petlinsky's colleagues from the "Movement of the Firsts" at the medical faculty wrote in a farewell post.

"How could he be there if he turned 18 just a month before his death???," commentators wondered.

Elena, Alexander's mother, told the BBC that "as a citizen of the Russian Federation, I am proud of my son. But as a mother - I cannot survive this loss," and refused to say anything else.

Nobody cares or needs it

One of the youngest contract soldiers to die - Danilo Chistyakov from Smolensk - died at the age of 18 years, one month and 27 days. Like Alexander and Vitaly, he spent only a few days at the front.

Danilo's family learned about his decision to go to war only on the day he signed the contract. After the boy's death, his family tried to ensure that yesterday's schoolchildren no longer went to the front.