"SVO children, f*** you, let me get into university," a Russian teenager says in a TikTok video, using the Kremlin-sanctioned term for the war in Ukraine.
The girl is referring to the children of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, who receive preferential treatment in university admissions as competition for state-funded places intensifies across Russia.
More than 28,000 students were admitted under quotas for war participants and their children in 2025, nearly double the number a year earlier, the exiled outlet IStories reported.
The quotas, part of a wider system of benefits for soldiers and their families introduced after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, are prompting some students and parents to complain that admission is increasingly decided by wartime status rather than academic achievement.
"I don't feel like I'm competing with them in terms of knowledge, but they're taking up all the budget spots,” a high school graduate from the Moscow region told The Moscow Times, asking not to be named for safety reasons.
