No submachine gun score - get a submachine gun

The main university of the Far East is trying to recruit contract workers from the “tailers”. So far it's not working out very well

For two months now, the largest university in the Far East has been trying to redirect debtor students to SVO. A huge banner advertising unmanned troops hangs right in the open parking lot of the Far Eastern Federal University. All official resources of the university periodically publish news about what opportunities a contract with the Ministry of Defense provides for students. And in the central building of the university, a consultation center has opened for recruiting UAVs into the UAV troops - they verbally promise that freshly minted contract soldiers and yesterday’s students will not get into other branches of the Armed Forces. According to our sources, the process of exchanging academic benches for body armor is stalled, including because most educational departments of the university are relatively autonomous and do not want to hand over even their “tails” so easily. However, for example, the Law School has distinguished itself: students are being brought down on commissions. As one of the students who passed through the commission told Novaya, the school director himself allegedly offers to sign a contract (and at the same time install the national instant messenger Max).

"Letters of Misfortune"

Let us recall that a month ago, activist Marina Barinova, who once worked as an adviser to the rector of FEFU (for criticizing what was happening at the university, her pass was permanently revoked in 2022), reported on her social networks: the university allegedly introduced quotas for sending male students to SVO. Each department supposedly has its own “target indicators”, which depend on the number of students. So, for the School of Pedagogy, where there are 177 guys, the quota is one “fighter”. But for the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, where 1,870 male students study, the quota is higher.

Right now, FEFU is undergoing the so-called PPA - repeated intermediate certifications. Simply put, for students who fail during the session, commissions are assembled and exams are administered. The first repeated intermediate certification lasted until March 12. The second is running right now - from March 17 to April 4.

However, already on March 5, students (and female students, to be fair) with debts received letters notifying them of their impending expulsion and asking them to provide an explanatory note to Studofis by the 11th.

Even those who passed the first re-certification received “letters of misfortune” if their data in the electronic record book was not updated.

“I was too lazy to go to the university to drop out. For a year and a half such letters of happiness arrived. They were expelled only at the end of the second year,” student Anna comments on the premature news about the expulsion of the “tailers.”

“This letter is really a default, previously it only came to those who have 4+ debts, but now they have sent it to everyone,” writes student Danila.

However, it turned out that the notices about expulsion were rather motivational.

“The notification came earlier than usual, and there will be no repeat: if you fail to pay your debts, you will ultimately be expelled,” explained German Vostokov, chairman of the FEFU United Student Council (the same one that defends the rights of students and which the university administration tried so hard to reform beyond recognition) in his telegram channel.

Teachers don't leave their teachers

Another question is why such demands appeared in the first place: do we need to expel more boys or simply put the system in order? After all, earlier, several years ago, one of the teachers recalls, there was a complete mess with deductions at FEFU. The commission met and waited for the guys who did not come from time to time and from semester to semester, and some had even left for their small homeland or another country. They filled out paperwork and notified student offices—but the students weren’t expelled for years. There were also students who “broke the system” and wrote applications for more and more commissions under the pretext of illness. But if the guys come, then they are “pulled” to the last minute and they only give them a C grade.

“We are people too. And no one wants to ruin their children’s lives just like that. Especially now,” states one of the university teachers.

But if you believe the students, the situation is alarming: even last year they gave two months for the first PPA, and people calmly passed. Things are tough now.

Commission statements are closed on the day the commissions are held, the deduction procedure starts immediately after the statement is closed, a few more days are needed to generate the deduction order. Moreover, if a student cannot come to the PAP due to illness or any other valid reason, they should notify about this no later than three days after the commission.

“In fact, no one is usually bullied at sessions,” one of the student council members explains the situation. — Schools have retained some degree of autonomy, and they can nod to the administration: they say, yes, yes, we’ll do everything, we’ll expel them, we’ll send them away. The only school that really has problems is law school. There, students were given several commissions a day, and they got screwed over the commissions.”

Zone of “legal anomaly”

Law school, as they say, has never been particularly student-friendly. It happened that they gave bad grades in the defense of diplomas, and supervisors failed their graduates in the defense. But now, it seems, they have outdone themselves.

“It has never happened that in one subject one teacher has 80 people on the committee,” one of the students is perplexed.

In particular, we were told about the commission on the arbitration process. The guys sat from noon until almost 11 pm. Each person answered for 30–40 minutes, the teachers mockingly laughed at the answers and asked questions that had nothing to do with the arbitration process at all. About 20 people simply didn’t have time. Of those who made it, 17 guys and three girls didn’t pass. But they still have a chance - a dispute commission. Contacting there suspends the deduction process. People write complaints that they were kept late and asked questions that were off topic.

Student Diana:

“There were about 50 people on the commission. We managed to interview only thirty: 20 of them did not pass, 10 passed. The remaining students waited in the office for 4-5 hours, had already written tickets and were ready to answer, but their answers were canceled due to the fact that the commission “did not have time to accept everyone.” This is wrong: the students did their part, and the failure occurred due to poor organization of the commission. It’s unfair to cancel answers that have already been written just because the commission didn’t calculate the time.”

“Novaya” talked to another student of the YSU - a “debtor”.

“Everyone who has at least two academic debts was invited a month ago to a conversation with the director of the School, Andrei Valerievich Prisekin. What did it look like? We go into Prisekin’s office, and he begins to shame and intimidate us. There are, in fact, a number of changes adopted at the end of 2025 - beginning of 2026. For example, that a maximum of two commissions are given. The first is to be submitted to a teacher, the second to three teachers. And they don’t give you the third one (if you fail the previous two). Previously, you could rent as much as you wanted. Just like it was at VVGU, when in the third year you could go with debts for the first.

And now this has been removed. At the entrance to the classroom for the second professional training, you must confirm that you feel well and have no complaints about your health. In case of expulsion, you can now only return to the first year. So, Prisekin and deputy. for academic work, they pronounce a tirade, which ends with the fact that our armed forces are fulfilling their duty in the Northern Military District zone and we have the opportunity to join the UAV troops. This, he explained, is not an “assault”; we will go for a year, and when we return, there will be a lot of benefits: they will give a hostel, they will assign a scholarship, they will restore it, and they will sort out the commissions (I still don’t understand how they will do this). Five million and so on. I'm sitting in wild [shock].

By the way, during this conversation they began to persistently agitate us to download the Max messenger.

Then we were politely invited to the selection point for contract service to listen to a lecture. They will tell you everything, show you everything, and you can even sign it. They bring us. The colonel, the head of the military training center, is sitting there. First, I wrote down everyone’s information: full name, phone numbers. As he explained: so that if we fail with “tail docking,” they call us. He begins to tell how prestigious contract service is. In a year, he promises, they will definitely let us go, but “many people still sign a contract.” One of those present said to the colonel: let’s go to the front line, if everyone is released in a year, you will tell them there that the contracts have ended.

He assures us that we will serve only in the UAV forces. He shows us a piece of paper from the Far Eastern Federal University; it says: training is suspended due to enlistment in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Well, the piece of paper doesn’t say anything about drones!

Who will give us a guarantee that the command, at its discretion, will not transfer us to serve anywhere? Comrade Colonel gave us some good advice: it is better to serve in a large group, with friends. Because it is better to go through the hardships of war together. We ended our meeting on this positive note. So we are from Law School! But conventional engineers or cultural experts will listen to this, and who knows what will happen?”

Interim assessments end on April 4. Based on the results, it will be possible to understand how many people still took advantage of the option of, so to speak, “military-type academic leave.” However, now the campaign to recruit UAVs into the troops appears to be going neither smoothly nor smoothly. The university does not boast of success; several commission members interviewed by Novaya say that students still receive exams and tests.

“What is the result? says a Law School student. — I personally have not seen such people who signed a contract because of debts. They didn’t even talk about them.”