The Russian authorities are increasingly directing ninth-grade graduates to colleges and technical schools, thus trying to solve the acute labor shortage for the military industry. At the same time, this reduces young people's opportunities to obtain a deferment from military service. This is reported by the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, UNN reports.
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According to the SZR, the Russian economy will need about 3 million workers, operators of production plants and machines over the next six years. This was previously stated by the head of the Russian Ministry of Labor, Anton Kotyakov.
"The acute personnel shortage in industry is pushing the authorities to directive decisions: to expand admission to colleges and technical schools and to launch campaigns to popularize blue-collar professions,"
The Foreign Intelligence Service notes that to provide industry with new workers, the Russian authorities are effectively limiting schoolchildren's access to senior grades. According to the agency, parents and ninth-grade graduates from various regions of the Russian Federation report mass refusals of enrollment in the 10th grade. Moreover, refusals are received not only by students with low academic performance but also by excellent students, who are recommended to enter colleges.
Such cases, according to the SZR, are recorded in Chuvashia, Primorsky and Krasnodar Krais, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblasts, Udmurtia and other regions of the aggressor country. The formal reasons cited are the average grade point average, results of state exams, or competitive selection for specialized classes.
"The educational standards that Moscow introduced during the full-scale war against Ukraine artificially complicate admission to high school. For the third year in a row, more than half of ninth-graders go not to the 10th grade, but to colleges and technical schools. In 2025, almost two-thirds of graduates – 62% – chose this path,"
The intelligence service also emphasizes that young people's choices are influenced by economic factors. The decline in real incomes of the population, the reduction of paid places in universities, and the provision of benefits to participants in the war against Ukraine and their family members significantly complicate access to higher education for other graduates.
According to the SZR, this policy has not only an economic but also a military purpose.
"Behind this administrative pressure lies a cynical military calculation. The college, where teenagers are essentially herded after the ninth grade, sharply narrows the opportunities to obtain a deferment from the army. Thus, the system that the Kremlin is building for the needs of the war works on two fronts simultaneously: it supplies the economy with cheap labor and the army with new soldiers,"