Special training as hackers and disinformation carriers is being received by students at Bauman University in Moscow.
Extensive research by Russian investigative journalism site “The Insider“, which is on the “foreign agents” register, and a number of Western media outlets, including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Delfi and VSquare, report that Moscow’s Bauman University is training students in hacking attacks and disinformation methods.
This is Moscow Bauman University’s Department 4, or “EIndustrial Education” and is the second university along with the Russian Technological University (MIREA) to have createdentire educational programs involving hacker training. “Sometimes you are first tracked down from school, then you go to Bauman and join the services… it’s part of a process,” said a former senior Russian defense official.
According to a report by Russian investigative journalism website The Insider, last April the Russian president, Vladimir Putin had visited Bauman University, located on the banks of Moscow’s Yauza River in the eastern part of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.
He toured the campus, met with undergraduate students and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the Moon and Mars. “You have everything you need to be competitive,” Putin said, addressing the students.
What the Kremlin’s announcement of Putin’s visit did not mention was a secret faculty within the university, known simply as Department 4 or “Special Education.”
According to the journalistic investigation, this university, like the Russian University of Technology (MIREA), has created entire training programs to train hackers.
Examining a few thousand internal documents of the faculty known as No. 4 or “Special Education,” The Insider’s reporters concluded that this faculty is where future hackers and saboteurs are trained.
A selected group of students are quietly being prepared in the “Special Training” department for careers in the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence directorate, whose agents have hacked Western parliaments, poisoned dissidents on foreign soil, and interfered in elections across Europe and the US.
To date, the role of military intelligence in preparing future intelligence agents has remained largely secret. “Sometimes you are first identified from school, then you go to Bauman and join the services… it’s part of a process,” said a former senior Russian defense official.
The existence of this path, from one of Russia’s most prestigious institutions directly to its military intelligence apparatus, is revealed for the first time in more than 2.000 internal Bauman documents obtained by a consortium of journalists from six media outlets: the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Insider, Delfi and VSquare.
According to the research, in 2024, 1,563 reservists and 429 contract candidates were studying at Section 4 on 14 military-related subjects.
