University administrators have also begun using academic performance as leverage in the recruitment campaign: students who are struggling academically are threatened with expulsion if they refuse to sign a special one-year contract with the military. If they do sign, however, they can have their academic debt written off and receive a custom learning plan upon return from the front. Human rights advocates warn that the promised “one-year contract” does not exist in Russian law, and that the document in question is legally no different from a standard open-ended military contract.