In Bratsk Medical College, 35 students from the medical and pharmaceutical departments were expelled. They were offered to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense. This was reported by local journalist Elena Kutergin. The expelled men were offered to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense and go to the "SVO" zone. Women were offered to undergo six months of training at their own expense and retake exams for 86,000 rubles per person. The students themselves claim that they were expelled after the state exam without announcement of the final scores, although they had no academic debts. According to them, there might have been errors in the training versions of the exam. The college belongs to the government of the Irkutsk region. Its director, Anton Solovyev, previously headed commercial structures involved in the trade of building materials. He did not respond to the journalist's inquiries. Context. Since the end of 2025, Russian authorities have announced a non-public campaign to recruit students into the so-called "drone troops." According to the Ministry of Defense and officials, such a contract is for one year and does not allow a person to be sent to the front as an assault trooper, however, these words have been repeatedly refuted by lawyers. Faridaily reported that Minister of Education Valery Falkov announced a plan for universities to recruit contract soldiers – 2% of the student population. The Kremlin denied this information. Now, human rights activists and journalists know of at least two students killed. It is also known that about a thousand students from Siberia, the Urals, and the Volga region may have joined the "drone troops." However, there is currently no more detailed data on students who have signed the contract.