As Bloomberg reported in June, citing EU officials, Russia forced thousands of migrant workers and foreign students to join its army in the war against Ukraine. Foreigners were threatened that if they refused, their visas for staying in Russia would not be extended.
A young man from Sri Lanka - he did not expect to go to the front
When he signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, the 21-year-old young man from Sri Lanka did not expect to be sent to the front in Ukraine. He learned about the possibility of joining the Russian army from a countryman.
He told him that he and his parents would get Russian citizenship - if he served in the army for a year.
"He told me that he would not send me to the front, but that I would work as an assistant," says the young man.
He signed the contract in February and immediately received about 2.000 US dollars, in rubles. He was promised a salary of $2.300 a month, plus possible bonuses.
When he was wounded and captured in the spring, he was lying in a Ukrainian hospital near the front and agreed to tell his story to Deutsche Welle (DW), on condition of anonymity. He spoke to the DW journalist in his native Sinhalese language and in the presence of Ukrainian soldiers. They spoke little English and did not engage in conversation.
From the butcher, through the restaurant to the army
"Due to poverty and the generally bad economic situation in Sri Lanka," as he says, he decided to get a work visa for Russia through the Employment Agency. The crisis in his country has further worsened due to the war that Russia is waging in Ukraine, as food and fuel prices have risen due to the blockade of the export of Ukrainian grain and other goods across the Black Sea.
He worked in a butcher's shop in Russia for a year, and when his visa expired, he lived in Moscow illegally for another year and worked in a fast food restaurant. He eventually joined the Russian army.
Five days at the front
After only two months in the background, he was transferred to the suburbs of the occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
"I told the commander that I wanted to return to Sri Lanka, but he said that it was impossible and that if I escaped, according to the contract, I would face 15 years in prison in Russia," says the young man.
He says that his unit included people from Nepal, India, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. He says he was at the front only once - for five days. Then he was wounded and captured.
A Nepali in the Russian army
"We are very, very poor," says a 35-year-old Nepalese man in a prison camp in western Ukraine. Back in July, he told his story to DW, but he also wanted to remain anonymous. The conversation was attended by a guard who also did not understand the English language and did not interfere in the conversation.
The prisoner worked as a taxi driver in Nepal for approximately $400 a month. It was not enough to feed his wife, two children and parents. He heard from a friend in India that one can earn "a lot of money" in the Russian army. Thus, in October 2023, he arrived in Moscow, where he underwent conscription and was taken to the "Avantgarde" training center on the outskirts of the Russian capital, along with 60 other foreigners. That center, according to the claims of American television CNN, serves exclusively for the training of foreign mercenaries. There, the Nepalese signed a one-year contract with the Russian army with a salary of $2.000 a month.
He says that he was first deployed further from the front, together with a Chinese man, as an assistant in the kitchen. In his unit there were 23 people from Nepal and three from India, while the remaining eleven were Russians. They communicated with each other using audio translators. After a month, he was transferred to positions near Donetsk.
There he also asked the commander to return home, but was told that it was not possible to terminate the contract. A few weeks later, in April, he was wounded – and then he saw Ukrainian soldiers. "I took off my helmet, bulletproof vest and rifle, asked for help and said I was from Nepal," he says.
People from the global south in the Russian army
There are currently a dozen foreign mercenaries in Ukrainian captivity, Petro Jazenko, spokesman for the Coordination Headquarters for Prisoners of War at the Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR, told DW. "Several more have been captured, but are not yet included in the statistics."
According to Yazenko, among the prisoners are citizens of African countries, for example from Sierra Leone and Somalia, but also people from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Cuba.
"These are mostly people from the global south, from poor countries," says Jazenko. And he adds that a Cuban told him that he earned only seven dollars a month at home.
The military intelligence service of Ukraine does not know how many foreigners are fighting on the Russian side. Russia addresses foreigners through advertisements on social networks, but also directly, through agitators, says Yazenko: "They often promise jobs in companies, and when it comes to the army, they say they will be deployed only in the background."
This was also confirmed by the eight foreign prisoners that the Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR brought to a press conference in Kyiv in March - five Nepali citizens and one each from Cuba, Sierra Leone and Somalia. They, as they said, spoke to journalists voluntarily. Thus, a man from Sierra Leone said that he had already participated in a war in his country, had been wounded, and had no intention of participating in another war. He says that he originally came to Russia because he was promised a job in construction.
Petro Yazenko from the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service notes that there are also professionals among the foreigners fighting for Russia.
"They have military experience and know very well where they are going," says Jazenko. Not everyone is a victim of fraud, he adds.
Ukraine treats Russian foreign mercenaries as prisoners of war
"Until the process against them is started, we will hold them the same as captured Russian soldiers," says Jazenko about the status of these foreigners. None of them have yet been released by being traded or otherwise.
"Some countries, especially Sri Lanka and Nepal, are interested in the return of their citizens. This allows us to negotiate," says Jazenko.
At the beginning of the year, CNN reported, citing its own sources, that Russia had recruited about 15.000 Nepali citizens. In the capital, Kathmandu, journalists attended a meeting of families of Nepali mercenaries who asked the authorities for the return of family members. The Nepalese government has stated that only 200 of its nationals are in the Russian army, of whom 13 have been killed. At the same time, it forbade its citizens to go to work in Russia, and this was preceded by a call to stop the recruitment of Nepali citizens by Russia. Also, police in Kathmandu arrested 18 people suspected of being involved in recruitment.
Escape assistance for foreigners as well
There are also known cases of foreign soldiers who left Russian positions. In May, the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service announced, without giving exact figures, that there had been a mass escape of Nepali mercenaries deployed in the occupied Lugansk region. In June, "France 24" television announced that 22 mercenaries from Sri Lanka had escaped from the Russian army.
Activists of the Russian human rights organization "Go to the Forest" help escape from the Russian army - primarily Russians and Ukrainians who have been forcibly recruited in the occupied territories. They also help citizens of other countries.
Ivan Čuviljajev, a representative of that organization, confirms in an interview with DW that their activists helped, among other things, people from African countries, as well as from Afghanistan, to escape.
According to him, the way in which Russia recruits foreigners for its army is no different from their approach in recruiting their own citizens.
"They use the fact that people do not know the laws and are in a difficult financial situation," says the Ukrainian human rights activist.
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