Universities across Russia have admitted 8,500 veterans of the war in Ukraine and their children this academic year, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenkoannounced Monday.President Vladimir Putin in 2022 ordered a 10% university admission quota for war veterans and their children, granting them priority and clearing them of entrance exams.“On the president’s instructions, about 8,500 participants of the special military operation [in Ukraine] and their children have been enrolled to study under a separate quota,” Chernyshenko reported at a cabinet meeting.“We have such children in almost all regions.

Many of them entered the country’s leading universities,” he added.A majority of war veterans admitted to Russia’s top universities have failed their entrance exams, the independent investigative news outlet iStories reported in early August. Russia’s government initiallyplanned to enroll no more than 6,600 veterans of the war in Ukraine and their children during the 2023 academic year.Chernyshenko on Monday noted that an unspecified number of universities admitted additional war veterans “at their own expense.”Around 1,000 universities across Russia admitted a total of 4.5 million students in Russia for the 2023 academic year, 1.2 million of whom are freshmen, Chernyshenko said.He further claimed that Russian universities have admitted almost 105,000 foreign students, saying the figure “confirms the demand for Russian education” amid Moscow’s growing international isolation over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.