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Russia is deliberately reducing access to higher education in the humanities and social sciences while expanding benefits for those who participate in the war against Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), UATV English informs.
The CCD said Russian authorities have cut approximately 47,000 paid university places in fields such as law, economics, psychology, and management. At the same time, tuition fees at many universities have reportedly increased by 10% to 30%.
According to the center, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed legislation granting special university admission privileges to widows and relatives of soldiers killed in combat, including access to higher education without entrance examinations and free preparatory courses.
“The logic is simple — dying at the front is more profitable than studying,” the CCD said in a statement.
The center argued that the Kremlin is increasingly reshaping Russia’s education system to serve wartime needs, while limiting traditional pathways for social mobility.
According to the CCD, the policy creates conditions in which military service becomes one of the few accessible routes to educational and economic opportunities for young Russians.
The statement comes amid broader reports that Russia is expanding military recruitment efforts among younger age groups. Earlier, Ukrainian officials reported that Moscow was increasing recruitment of female students into UAV-related units both in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories and within educational institutions across the Russian Federation.
The CCD maintains that these measures reflect a broader effort by the Russian state to compensate for military losses and sustain personnel levels as the war against Ukraine continues.
