By Ekaterina Janashia | 2026-01-30

When a Russian university student opened a routine online questionnaire in late 2025, the first question looked less like a career prompt than a draft notice. "What do you plan to do after graduation?" it asked. The answer choices did not include internships or graduate school. Instead, they offered compulsory military service, enlistment in the "special military operation," parental leave or "other."

A screenshot of the survey spread rapidly on X in November, capturing a reality many students already recognized: higher education in Russia has become another front in the state's war effort.

According to an investigation by Meduza, the survey was part of a far-reaching, state-linked campaign to assess loyalty, detect dissent and probe deeply into the private lives of young people across the country.

What began as scattered efforts to identify "opposition-minded" students has evolved into a coordinated system of ideological and psychological monitoring, experts said.

From polls to surveillance

The push to track student attitudes began soon after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That spring, universities quietly distributed questionnaires about patriotism and political views. By October, the effort turned overt. State Duma lawmaker Yana Lantratova publicly urged the Higher Education Ministry to measure student sentiment toward the war.

Lantratova cited reports of "opposition-minded" students at elite universities, such as the Higher School of Economics, and alleged incidents of hostility toward pro-war symbols. Early surveys, later uncovered by student journalists, asked whether respondents considered Russia a superpower or whether they would join anti-government strikes.

What started as sporadic polling soon hardened into a bureaucratic routine. By 2025, students had encountered at least eight major survey waves across seven regions, from Belgorod near the Ukrainian border to Siberia. The questionnaires increasingly mixed political loyalty checks with intrusive personal questions, often distributed by university administrators under pressure from above.

Politics and private life

In June 2025, administrators at Kazan Federal University circulated a survey framed as an assessment of "psychological safety." Alongside generic questions, it asked students about their views of patriotic youth movements such as Yunarmiya.

Elsewhere, the political focus was unmistakable. In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, students were required to rate President Vladimir Putin's performance using finely calibrated options such as "bad but improving" or "good but getting worse." The survey was not anonymous, raising concerns about potential academic or legal repercussions.

The most explosive case unfolded in November 2025 at Voronezh State University. Students received a non-anonymous "reproductive health" questionnaire that asked about the age they became sexually active, their use of contraception and their history of sexually transmitted diseases. The backlash spread quickly, prompting criticism even from some pro-government lawmakers. University officials responded by calling the survey "voluntary" and denying centralized coordination.

'The Concerned Person'

Much of the data collection flows through a platform called Neravnodushny Chelovek, or "The Concerned Person." Launched in April 2023, it is a joint project of the Education and Science Ministry, Tomsk State University and the state pollster VTsIOM.

The platform describes itself as a feedback tool to improve education. Its institutional partnerships suggest a broader ideological mission. It works closely with Russia -- Land of Opportunity, a Kremlin-controlled nonprofit created at President Putin's initiative. The organization oversees state-run ideological programs and youth competitions, including projects operating in occupied Ukrainian territories.

Students must register for the surveys using VKontakte, the state-controlled social network, or provide an email address. While the platform claims that data is later anonymized, the requirement to identify oneself at the outset has fueled skepticism and fear.

According to experts interviewed by the student outlet Groza, survey responses help identify so-called "risk groups" -- students deemed prone to ideological nonconformity or "anti-social behavior." An educational psychologist at a Russian college described a system in which those assessments follow students beyond campus.

"An educational psychologist in a school today […] is, to put it bluntly, a snitch," the source told Groza in June. "They should be a resource for students, providing psychological and moral support. But instead, they just sell them out."

The psychologist said internal records are shared during routine inspections by the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB).

"I recently had five checks by the FSB and two by the prosecutor's offices," the source told Groza, adding that police also review student files.

Silent resistance

Despite the scale of the monitoring, analysts say it has not produced genuine loyalty. Sociologist Stepan Goncharov of the Levada Center has described young people as the authorities' "most sensitive issue" precisely because they remain the most opposition-leaning demographic.

Instead of open rebellion, the prevailing response has been cynicism. University administrators often treat the surveys as a box-checking exercise to demonstrate compliance with Moscow's youth policies. Students frequently ignore the questionnaires or provide answers they believe are politically safe.

"I came across sociological questions from VTsIOM," Evgeniy, a 20-year-old student from Moscow, told Kontur. "There were questions about attitudes toward the authorities and the 'special military operation,' but they weren't very detailed and the answer options were completely normal."

"I answered them honestly without any fear because I realize that they'll just change the statistics later anyway. So, what difference does it make what I tell them?"

Rather than fostering loyalty, critics say, the surveys have deepened distrust. Universities increasingly resemble extensions of the state’s internal security apparatus, and the polling itself appears less about learning what students think than about proving that the state is watching.