How one officer class offers a glimpse into Russia’s military amid the war in Ukraine
On June 25, 2016, with a military orchestra playing and a Russian Orthodox priest sprinkling holy water, a new class of officers graduated from the Ryazan paratroop academy.
The young men in their starched parade uniforms were the elite of Russia’s armed forces, the embodiment of President Vladimir Putin’s pledge to make the armed forces stronger, smarter, and more deadly. The graduates of the Ryazan academy – a paratroop version of West Point in the United States or Sandhurst in Britain – were the next generation of military leaders.
Some of the two dozen graduates went to a reception at the Kremlin three days later. Putin told them, in televised comments, “You will need to carry out difficult and weighty tasks… I am sure that the officer corps will always stand up reliably for the defense of the motherland.”
Nearly eight years on, as Russia wages war on Ukraine, Reuters traced all but one of the class of 2016. Their stories offer a window on Russia’s secretive military, which doesn’t share data on casualties or the strength of its forces.
Three of the graduates were killed in Ukraine in the early months of the invasion in 2022 and a fourth was killed in October 2023, the reporting showed. A fifth was decorated for bravery and a sixth was captured by Ukraine then released in a prisoner exchange. All but three of the Russian nationals in the graduating class are still in the Russian military.
Joris Van Bladel, who researches Russia’s armed forces at Belgium’s Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, noted that while the 2016 class is too small a sample on which to draw wide conclusions, the relatively low casualty rate serves as a reminder that Russia’s military, battered by a months-long Ukrainian counter-offensive, isn’t a basket case. The British government, for example, said in August it believes 50% of Russia’s paratroopers deployed to Ukraine have been killed in action or wounded.
“It’s a tough, tenacious opponent,” Van Bladel said of Russia’s military. Russian lines are “not collapsing… Russians are an effective force, as they have shown” he said. Three other Western experts on Russian military staffing said the paratroops have recovered somewhat after heavy losses at the start of the war.
The Kremlin referred Reuters’ questions for this article to the defense ministry. The ministry did not respond. Nor did the Ryazan academy.
THE RYAZAN Guards Higher Airborne Command School, 200 km. south-east of Moscow, has existed for over a century. Around 170 of its graduates have been awarded the “Hero of the Soviet Union” or “Hero of Russia” medals, the highest military honor.
Most of the class of 2016 arrived five years earlier, at a time of big change in the military. The then-defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov, believed the army had too many commanders so Ryazan took in no officer cadets in 2010 and in 2011 the intake, of 26 cadets, was a fraction of its normal size. On average the annual intake is around 300 officer cadets.
Most of the new students were Russian but over a third were on secondment from Belarus – a mark of the close military and political alliance between Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Some of the cadets had a distinguished military pedigree.
Ivan Osipenko, a young man with dark eyebrows, is the son of Mikhail Osipenko, who has served as a senior Russian paratroop commander, according to residence records and two fellow cadets. A lanky cadet with a wide smile, Viktor Galkin, was the son of Alexei Galkin, decorated a “Hero of Russia” after he escaped separatist rebels during an uprising in Russia’s Chechnya region.
Other recruits came from more modest backgrounds.
Badma Badmayev, from Russia’s historically Buddhist Kalmykia region, was inspired to join because his older cousin had studied at the academy, a close relative of Badmayev told Reuters. Yuri Kudryashov was brought up by a single mother, a house painter, in Mari El Republic on the Volga river, according to a 2016 profile in a Ryazan newspaper.
A grainy video recorded by one of the cadets on a mobile phone gives a glimpse of their experiences at the academy. They did parachute jumps, were taught to work with explosives, drove armored vehicles and used firearms on a shooting range.
When Galkin proposed to his girlfriend, the cadets celebrated by setting off fireworks. Dmitry Litvinov, a baby-faced cadet from near the Arctic Circle, appears in group photos taken at the barracks with a guitar under his arm. A video posted on social media by Vladimir Vasilenko, one of the Belarussians, shows Vasilenko standing in an alleyway smashing a glass bottle over his own head as other cadets cheer him on.
By the time the cohort graduated, they were feted as the future of the Russian army. Kudryashov, the housepainter’s son, was interviewed by the defense ministry’s TV station as an example of a new, tech-savvy military leader. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu sent his deputy to read out a message at the graduation ceremony. “I express my firm belief that this new graduating class will make a worthy contribution to keeping our military units battle-ready and in high morale,” Shoigu wrote.
AFTER THAT, the graduates went their separate ways.
Reuters found out what happened to them by speaking to six members of the group, to relatives and friends of the ex-cadets, and by examining their social media accounts and public records. Badmayev, the cadet from the Buddhist region, was the first of the 2016 class to be killed in Ukraine. He was based in eastern Siberia, his relative told Reuters, and did tours of duty in Chechnya and Syria.
On February 23, 2022, Badmayev phoned home and told his family he was on exercises in Russian-annexed Crimea. The next day, Russia invaded Ukraine. Badmayev, by now a captain, was part of a force assigned to seize a bridge across the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine.
He was killed on March 7. His relative said an explosion near him tore off half his face. He was identified by the talisman around his neck.
Five months later, the cousin who inspired him to join the military, Mingiyan Ledzhiyev, was also killed fighting in Ukraine.
In September 2022, a plaque in Badmayev’s memory was unveiled at his former school in the town of Lagan and local officials offered up Buddhist prayers.
One of Badmayev’s Ryazan classmates, Alim Bikoyev, took part in the same operation to seize a bridge over the Dnieper, according to Badmayev’s relative. Bikoyev was captured by Ukrainian forces. A Ukrainian Telegram channel published a video in March 2022 showing Bikoyev under interrogation. He was later freed in a prisoner exchange. Bikoyev declined to comment when Reuters contacted him.
The next 2016 graduate to be killed was Maxim Mikutov. He was a senior lieutenant and deputy commander of a company in a paratrooper brigade. He deployed to Mariupol, the south-eastern Ukrainian city where Russian forces spent months trying to root out besieged Ukrainian fighters. His father said Mikutov was killed on April 12, 2022, as he led a raid.
The funeral wake was held at his parents’ home two weeks later.
Litvinov, the baby-faced cadet with the guitar, was killed in Ukraine in July 2022. Litvinov’s mother said her son was a captain in the 56th paratroop assault brigade based in Kamyshin in the Volgograd region. He commanded a reconnaissance company. Near the base in Kamyshin, Litvinov’s photo looks out of a billboard with the words: “To be a warrior is to live for eternity!”
In photographs the cadets posted on social media from their Ryazan academy days, Litvinov appears alongside Yevgeny Mikhailov, a blonde cadet with a round face and a ruddy complexion. Mikhailov was killed fighting in Ukraine on Oct 15, 2023, two of his close relatives told Reuters. Mikhailov, part of a paratroop reconnaissance team, died when his vehicle was hit by Ukrainian fire, said one of the relatives. His wife, Darya, posted on her social media account later the same month: “Your soul is in the eyes of our children. I love you. Forever.”
SURVIVING MEMBERS of the Ryazan class of 2016 have stayed in touch with the families of their dead comrades. Badmayev’s relative said a group of former classmates visited to pay their respects. Mikutov’s father said classmates and their families are putting together a book of remembrance and are raising funds for a memorial.
An examination of publicly-reported deaths shows that at least 207 Ryazan ex-cadets have been killed since Russia launched its invasion, a figure that represents around 4.5% of graduates over the past decade. Not all deaths are publicly reported.
Kyiv has also suffered heavy losses; a Ukrainian civic group said in November last year the toll among Ukrainian troops of all types was likely more than 30,000.
Twenty-six-year-old Yuri Schnaider, who graduated from Ryazan after the class of 2016, is among the dead. Decorated for bravery, he was one of the soldiers chosen as a backdrop for Putin’s 2023 New Year’s Eve televised address to the nation. A little over three months later, his mother Galina posted on social media that Schnaider died. She described him as a hero. Local media said he was killed fighting in Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify the media reports.
At least seven of the graduates have survived tours of duty in Ukraine. They include Galkin, the son of the Chechnya war hero, and Kudryashov, the housepainter’s son.
Maxim Shikin, one of four students who graduated with distinction, posed in a group photograph with Putin at the Kremlin reception in June 2016. Soon after Russia launched its invasion, Shikin took part in an operation to seize the military airport at Hostomel, north of Kyiv, according to an account he later gave to a group of students. The airport was intended to be a bridgehead for an aborted assault on the Ukrainian capital. Shikin was awarded the “Hero of Russia” medal in March 2022 for his part in the war.
Of the surviving members of the Ryazan class of 2016, 12 are not serving in the Russian military. One of the Russian cohort works for Russian Railways, another left the military after breaking his leg in a skiing accident.
One of the Belarussians, Ivan Dailidko, stayed on to serve in the Russian military and married a Russian paratrooper officer called Yekaterina. The couple declined to comment when Reuters reached them.
Four of Dailidko’s countrymen are in the Belarussian military, according to Reuters interviews and data shared with Reuters by Belpol, an exiled Belarus opposition organization. Two others stayed in Russia in civilian jobs. Vasilenko, the cadet who smashed a bottle on his head, quit the military and lives in Belarus.
The last of the Belarussian graduates has since joined the French Foreign Legion and done at least one tour of duty in Mali, according to his posts on social media, which are under a fake name. On his VKontakte social media account, underneath his profile picture, the man has written: “I sincerely wish victory for Ukraine!” Reuters has independently verified his identity and that he served in the French Foreign Legion. He asked not to be identified in this article, citing a fear of reprisals back home in Belarus. (Reuters)