Valery Averin. Photo: Kyakhta district administration, Buryatia, via VK
The BBC has identified the first verified case of battlefield losses among Russian college students recruited to serve in the country’s drone forces. The publication found that Valery Averin, a 23-year-old student from Buryatia, died near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on April 6, just days after being sent to the front.
Averin signed a contract with Russia’s Defense Ministry in early January and trained as a drone operator. His foster mother, Oksana Afanasyeva, said his training ended in late March. On April 2, he called her for the last time and said he was going somewhere with “no network coverage.” On April 8, she was told her son had been killed by mortar fire.
“The boy spent three months training how to fly drones, and then they sent him into an assault, into the worst meat grinder — someone who had never served in the army,” Afanasyeva said. She said Averin had wanted to serve in the military but had not been accepted: “They said he was mentally unstable or something. He deceived me, said he had gone to earn money at [retail platform] Wildberries. And when I found out he had signed a [military] contract, I nearly lost my mind.”
