With promises of high salaries and citizenship, the Russian army recruits mercenaries from poor countries in the Global South. Ignorance of the law and financial precariousness work in their favor. But not all of them are victims of deception.
(DW) When he signed the contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, the 21-year-old Sri Lankan didn’t expect to be sent to the front in Ukraine. A compatriot had told him about the possibility of joining the army, claiming that if he served for a year, he and his family would get Russian citizenship.
“He told me that we wouldn’t be sent to the front, only mobilized as support staff,” he says. In a quick decision, in February he signed a contract, immediately receiving the equivalent of 2,000 dollars, with the prospect of a monthly salary of 2,300 dollars, plus any extras.
A few months later, in a hospital in Ukraine, having been wounded and captured, he was willing to tell DW his story, on condition of anonymity. An interpreter followed the conversation by telephone in Sinhalese, under the eyes of Ukrainian soldiers who apparently had little knowledge of English and did not intervene.
He had decided to obtain a work visa for Russia through an employment agency “because of the bad economic situation in Sri Lanka”. The crisis in the South Asian country had also worsened due to the Russian war, which had caused the price of food and fuel to skyrocket, with the blockade of Ukrainian exports across the Black Sea.
After working in a butcher’s shop for a year, his visa expired and he spent another year living illegally in Moscow as a cafeteria worker. Finally, he joined the armed forces. After just two months in the rearguard, he was mobilized to the suburbs of the occupied city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
His unit also included citizens from Nepal, India, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. “I told the commander that I wanted to go back to Sri Lanka, but he said it was impossible and that in the event of desertion, according to the contract, I was subject to 15 years in prison in Russia.” The young man was only directly at the front once, for five days, until he was wounded and imprisoned.
The story of a Nepalese
As Bloomberg reported in June, citing European officials, Russia forced thousands of migrant workers and foreign students to sign up for the war against Ukraine. Those who refused were threatened with not having their visas extended.
“We are very, very poor,” says a 35-year-old Nepalese man at the center for prisoners of war in western Ukraine, also asking not to be identified. This conversation also took place in the presence of a guard, who remained silent and didn’t seem to understand English.
In his home country, the Nepalese man says he used to make around 400 dollars a month as a taxi driver, which wasn’t enough to support his parents, wife and two children. Friends in India told him that he could earn “a lot of money” in the Russian Army. So, in October 2023, he arrived in Moscow, where he was recruited and sent to the Avantgarde training center, along with 60 other foreigners.
These facilities on the outskirts of the capital are used exclusively for training foreign mercenaries, according to US broadcaster CNN. There, the Nepali signed a one-year contract with a monthly salary of 2,000 dollars. At first, he was also appointed to the rear in Russia, as a kitchen assistant, together with a Chinese man. In all, the troop consisted of 23 people from Nepal, three from India and 11 from Russia, who communicated with each other using translation software.
After a month, he was deployed to positions near Donetsk. When he asked his commander to return home, he was told that it was impossible to terminate his contract. A few weeks later, in April 2024, he was wounded and spotted Ukrainian soldiers: “I took off my helmet, my protective vest and dropped my machine gun, asked for help and said I was coming from Nepal.”
Not everyone is a victim of deception
Ukraine is currently holding around ten mercenaries, explains Petro Yatsenko, spokesman for the Headquarters for the Coordination of the Treatment of Prisoners of War of the HUR, the Ukrainian military secret service. “Some others have been captured, but are not yet included in the statistics.”
Among them are citizens of African countries such as Sierra Leone and Somalia, as well as Sri Lanka, Nepal and Cuba: “Most come from the Global South, from poor countries.” One Cuban told Yatsenko that in his country he earned just seven dollars a month.
The HUR has no information on the number of foreigners fighting on the Russian side. The government attracts them both with propaganda on social networks and directly abroad through agitators: “They are often promised jobs in companies and, when it comes to the army, they are told that they will only be deployed in the rear.”
This claim was confirmed by foreign prisoners whom the HUR presented at a press conference in Kiev in March. The five Nepalese, one Cuban, one Sierra Leonean and one Somalian said they were speaking voluntarily. The one from Sierra Leone had gone to Russia on the promise of a construction job. He had already taken part in a war in his own country, had been wounded and did not intend to take part in another war, he said.
Yatsenko points out, however, that not everyone is a victim of deception, as there are also professionals among the foreigners fighting for Russia: “They have military experience and know very well where they are going.”
As for their legal status, “as long as there is no case against them, they are detained like captured Russian soldiers”. So far, none have been released in prisoner exchanges or other procedures. But “some countries, especially Sri Lanka and Nepal, are interested in getting their citizens back. This makes it possible for us to negotiate,” explains the HUR spokesperson.
Financial precariousness and ignorance of the law are weapons
At the beginning of 2024, CNN reported that Russia had recruited around 15,000 Nepalese. In the capital Kathmandu, the reporters attended a meeting with the families of the mercenaries, who demanded that the authorities bring them back.
Although only 200 of its citizens – 13 of whom have already died – are registered in the Russian army, the Nepalese government has banned travel to Russia for work purposes, in response to a popular call for an end to recruitment. In addition, the police have arrested 18 people in Kathmandu who may have been involved in recruiting mercenaries.
There have also been reports of foreigners abandoning Russian military positions. In May, without citing figures, HUR reported a mass exodus of Nepalese mercenaries stationed in the occupied Luhansk region. And in June, France 24 reported that 22 Sri Lankans had escaped from Russian military service.
The Russian human rights organization Idite Lesom (Go for the Forest) helps people escape from military service – mainly Russians and Ukrainians from the occupied regions, who were recruited with violence, but also citizens of other countries.
Activist Ivan Chuvilyayev confirms that the NGO has already helped citizens of African countries and Afghanistan to desert. According to him, the way Russia recruits foreigners is no different from the way it attracts its own citizens to fight in the war against Ukraine: “It takes advantage of the fact that they don’t know the laws and are in a precarious financial situation.”