In the Russian town of Pavlovsky Posad, east of Moscow, the death of a teenage soldier has provoked a question that cuts through the Kremlin’s patriotic rhetoric about the war in Ukraine: why are young men who have barely begun their adult lives being sent to fight — and die — on the front line?
Alisher Svirin, believed to be the first Russian soldier born in 2008 to have been killed in the conflict, was reportedly deployed as a machine gunner with a motorised rifle brigade within days of turning 18. He was just 14 when Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
His death has prompted an outpouring of grief and anger among residents of his hometown, with some questioning how a teenager with little or no combat experience could have been sent into battle.
“Why?! A young soldier who’d never seen combat… Still just a child,” local resident Svetlana Serezhkina wrote on social media.
Another resident, identified as Andrei, questioned the decision to allow the teenager to enlist. “It’s such a shame they let him sign a contract,” he wrote.
Their reactions offer a rare glimpse of the disquiet beneath Russia’s official narrative of military sacrifice. Four years into the invasion, the deaths of young recruits are becoming a deeply personal reality for families and communities far removed from the fighting.
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The scale of the losses among Russia’s youngest soldiers remains difficult to establish. An investigation by BBC Russian and the independent outlet Mediazona has documented more than 200 Russian servicemen aged 18 who have died since the start of the full-scale invasion. The actual toll may be higher, with missing personnel and fighters from separatist formations complicating efforts to compile a complete record.
Online memorials have become repositories of that grief. On VKontakte, Russia’s dominant social networking platform, groups dedicated to commemorating the dead publish photographs, obituaries and messages from bereaved relatives.
One pro-war Orthodox Christian community, Synodik, has emerged as a place where mothers share prayers and religious icons alongside images of their fallen sons. The memorials sit uneasily beside the state’s efforts to portray military service as an expression of patriotism and national duty.
Among those remembered is Kirill Tretyakov, born in 2007, who was studying at college and enjoyed football and kettlebell lifting. According to reports, he signed a contract with Russia’s Ministry of Defence six days after his 18th birthday.
He was subsequently deployed as a combat engineer in an obstacle-laying unit and was killed on September 22.
The speed with which some teenagers appear to have moved from civilian life into military service has raised concerns about their ability to assess the risks they face. Adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to recruitment appeals that emphasise status, duty or financial reward while downplaying the likelihood of death or serious injury.
A psychologist working with Russian adolescents told The Moscow Times that young people often struggle to appreciate the dangers of combat.
“The risk of being killed is very high, but young people don’t think about that,” the expert said. “When you’re young, you feel like life will last forever, like you’re invincible. Teenagers lack the networks that could help them think critically about the war.”
The psychologist also warned that state propaganda had contributed to a culture in which human life was treated as expendable, pointing to television presenter Vladimir Solovyov’s declaration that “life is greatly overrated”.
Other reported deaths have fuelled questions about the circumstances in which inexperienced recruits are being deployed.
Nikolai Ruzov, a 19-year-old from Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, was reportedly killed on August 18 after being sent into combat as the commander of an assault squad. His case has raised concerns about the responsibilities placed on very young servicemen with limited experience.
In a separate case, 19-year-old David Fedorov was reportedly intercepted by police in the Russian city of Cheboksary and pressured into signing a military contract. His mother said he was subsequently deployed as a frontline driver despite not having a driving licence. He was killed during an assault mission on October 20.
The circumstances of individual cases vary, and the available reports do not establish that all young recruits were enlisted under the same conditions. But taken together, the accounts illustrate the risks faced by inexperienced servicemen as Russia continues to sustain its military campaign.
At the same time, the Kremlin is seeking to strengthen the flow of recruits through patriotic education programmes in schools. Returning soldiers have been presented to pupils as examples of military service, part of a broader effort to frame the invasion in terms of national duty and prepare a new generation for a more militarised society.
That effort is unfolding against the backdrop of enormous battlefield losses. Ukraine’s General Staff said on October 28 that Russian forces had suffered more than 1.58mn personnel casualties since the full-scale invasion began on February 24 2022, including 1,510 over the preceding day.
The figure represents Ukraine’s estimate of Russian personnel losses and has not been independently verified. It should not be read as a confirmed count of deaths alone, since wartime casualty estimates can include killed, wounded and other personnel losses.
Moscow does not routinely publish a comprehensive, independently verifiable account of its military deaths. Ukraine has also withheld its own overall casualty figures, citing operational security.
The absence of a complete picture makes it difficult to measure the precise burden borne by Russia’s youngest servicemen. But the obituaries circulating online offer a more intimate account of the war’s cost: young men whose lives were defined, until recently, by college, sport and family, now remembered in photographs and prayers.
For Putin’s government, replenishing the ranks remains a central challenge as the invasion grinds on. For the families of those killed, the national objectives invoked to justify the war offer little consolation.
The anger in Pavlovsky Posad suggests that, even in a country where public criticism of the military campaign carries significant risks, the deaths of the very young can provoke questions that official patriotism cannot easily answer.
A generation that was barely old enough to understand the invasion when it began is now being sent to fight in it. Some are not coming home.
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