First Russian student recruited into UAV troops killed in Ukraine

Valery Averyn, a 23-year-old resident of Buryatia, signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense on January 3, underwent training as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operator, and died on April 6 near Luhansk — just three months after starting service, writes the BBC.

Valery Averyn was a foster child from an orphanage in the village of Timlyuy, adopted into a foster family at the age of 11. According to Averyn's foster mother, Oksana Afanasyeva, who spoke to the BBC, Valery completed his UAV operator training on March 24. On April 2, he called her for the last time and said he was going somewhere where "there's no connection."

She was informed of her foster son's death on April 8 — just two weeks after he finished his training — and was told that he died during a mortar attack.

"The child studied UAV for three months, and we sent him into an assault, into the very meat grinder, someone who hadn't even served in the army," says Afanasyeva. But she doesn't know the details of his death: Valery Averyn didn't tell her his military unit number or his call sign.

Valery was in his final year at the Buryat College of Construction and Industrial Technologies, where he was studying a second specialty and was due to receive his diploma this year. His foster mother says she heard about other contracts at this college resulting in fatalities, but she doesn't provide details, and this has not yet been confirmed from open sources.

"He really wanted to serve, but they wouldn't take him into the army, saying he was mentally unstable. He deceived me, saying he went to earn money on Wildberries. And when I found out he had signed a contract, I almost went crazy. I said: 'What have you done? Where have you gone?' And he said: 'Nothing will happen to me, everything will be fine, don't worry'," Oksana Afanasyeva recounted.

In 2023, she posted a photo on social media of Averyn's sister, Svetlana, in military uniform — according to BBC data, Svetlana works as a junior nurse at a hospital in Simferopol.

At the college where Valery Averyn studied, "courage lessons" were regularly held, during which students were encouraged to join contract service. And military unit 63411 organized an "exhibition of engineering weapons," where drones were also displayed.

On April 24, the official group of Kyakhtinsky District on VK reported that Valery had died.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the creation of a new branch of troops — unmanned systems — in mid-November 2025. Defense Minister Andrei Belousov emphasized that they plan to primarily involve young people under 35, "who are more receptive to new technologies and speeds."

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