How Russia is recruiting foreigners to fight in Ukraine

When a 21-year-old man from Walasmulla, Sri Lanka, signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense to join the Russian army, he did not expect to be sent to fight on the frontline in Ukraine. He had heard about the possibility of joining the Russian armed forces from another Sri Lankan, who had told him that if he served for a year, he and his parents would receive Russian citizenship.

"He told me you wouldn't be sent to the front, and would only be used as a helper," the young man told DW.

He signed up in February and immediately received a payment equivalent to $2,000 (€1,800). He was promised a salary of $2,300 (€2,100) per month, plus potential bonus payments. He says he felt under pressure to sign a contract with the army in order to obtain legal status in Russia.

In spring, when he was wounded and captured in Ukraine and taken to a hospital near the front, he agreed to tell his story to a DW reporter on condition of anonymity. The interview was conducted over the phone in Sinhalese, via an interpreter, under the watchful eye of Ukrainian military personnel who apparently had little knowledge of English and did not interfere in the conversation.

A butcher's, a restaurant, then the army

The young man told DW he decided to get a work visa for Russia through a job agency "because of the poor economic situation in Sri Lanka."

The economic crisis in his home country has worsened, in part because of Russia's war against Ukraine. Food and fuel prices have risen due to Russia's blockade of Ukrainian exports across the Black Sea. The man spent a year working for a Russian butcher, and when his visa expired, he remained in Moscow illegally for a further year, working in a fast-food restaurant. Finally, he joined the Russian army.

After a two-month deployment in the hinterland, he was sent to the outskirts of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

"I told the commander that I wanted to go back to Sri Lanka, but he said this was impossible, and that, according to the contract, I would face 15 years in prison in Russia if I fled," the young man told DW.

He added that, in his unit, there were also citizens of Nepal, India, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The man said he was only deployed to the front once, for five days, where he was wounded and taken prisoner.

The Bloomberg news agency, citing European officials, writes that Russia has forced thousands of migrant workers and foreign students to join the Russian army to fight against Ukraine. These individuals were reportedly told that their visas would no longer be renewed if they refused to serve.

'A lot of money' to serve in the army

In July, DW was also able to interview a 35-year-old man from Nepal, on condition of anonymity, who is being held in a prisoner of war (POW) camp in western Ukraine. He told DW he was "very, very poor."

A guard was present for this interview as well, but he didn't appear to understand English and did not interfere in the conversation.

The man worked as a cab driver in Nepal, earning around $400 (€358) a month, which was not enough to feed his wife, two children and parents. He heard from friends in India that he could earn "a lot of money" serving in the Russian army.

So he came to Moscow in October 2023, where he underwent a physical examination before being taken to a military training center on the outskirts of the Russian capital, along with 60 other foreigners. Other foreigners recruited by Russia have also spoken of this facility, which the US broadcaster CNN reports is designated exclusively for the training of foreign soldiers. The Nepalese man signed a one-year contract with the Russian army, with a salary of $2,000 (€1,790) per month.

He says that he too, along with a Chinese man, was initially deployed in the Russian hinterland, working as kitchen assistants. There were 23 Nepalese people and three Indians in the unit; the other eleven were Russians. The man told DW that they communicated with each other using voice translators.

After a month, he was transferred to a position near Donetsk. There, he asked his commander to let him return home, but was told that it was impossible to terminate his contract. A few weeks later, in April, he was wounded. When he saw Ukrainian soldiers, he says, "I took off my helmet, protective vest, and machine gun, asked for help, and said that I was from Nepal."

Recruitment from the global South

There are about ten foreign soldiers currently being held by Ukraine, says Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the prisoners-of-war department with the Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR.

"A few more have been captured, but have not yet been included in the statistics," he told DW.

Yatsenko says there are African citizens among the detainees, including persons from Sierra Leone and Somalia, as well as others from Sri Lanka, Nepal and Cuba: "They are mostly people from the global South, from poor countries."

He told DW that one Cuban told him he only earned seven dollars a month at home.

HUR doesn't know how many foreigners are fighting on the Russian side, but according to Yatsenko, Russia does try to recruit foreigners by running ads on social networks, and by using agitators: "They often promise them jobs in companies, and when it comes to serving in the army, they say they will only be deployed in the hinterland."

This was confirmed by eight foreigners — five Nepalese citizens, and one citizen each from Cuba, Sierra Leone and Somalia — whom the HUR brought to a press conference in Kyiv in March. They assured the reporters in attendance that they were speaking to them voluntarily. The Sierra Leonean man said he had already fought in a war in his own country, that he had been wounded, and had no intention of going to war again. He said he had traveled to Russia because he was promised a job on a construction site.

Yatsenko told DW that some of the foreigners fighting for Russia were professionals who have "military experience and know perfectly well where they are going."

Not all of those fighting on the Russian side have been tricked into serving, he says.

POW status

As far as these foreigners' status is concerned, Yatsenko explains, "as long as there are no legal proceedings against them, they will be held prisoner, the same as captured Russian soldiers."

So far, none of them have been released in a prisoner exchange, or through any other procedure. "Some countries, especially Sri Lanka and Nepal, are interested in getting their citizens back," the HUR spokesman told us. "This makes negotiation possible."

Earlier this year, CNN, citing its own sources, reported that Russia had recruited around 15,000 Nepalese citizens. In the capital Kathmandu, journalists attended a meeting of families of Nepalese mercenaries, who were calling on the authorities to return their relatives. According to the Nepalese government, only 200 of its citizens have joined the Russian army, 13 of whom are said to have died. It has, however, prohibited its citizens from traveling to Russia for work, after calling for an end to the recruitment of Nepalese citizens by Russia. The police in Kathmandu also arrested 18 people who were believed to be involved in recruitment.

Helping foreigners escape

There have been instances, too, of foreigners abandoning Russian positions. In May, the HUR reported, without giving a specific number, that Nepalese soldiers stationed in the occupied region of Luhansk had fled en masse. And in June, the broadcaster France 24 reported that 22 Sri Lankans had deserted the Russian army.

Activists from the Russian human rights organization "Idite lesom" ("Go through the forest") are helping soldiers to escape — primarily Russians and Ukrainians forcibly conscripted in Russian-occupied areas.

However, they also provide assistance to citizens of other countries. Ivan Chuvilyayev, a representative of the organization, confirmed in an interview with DW that, among others, the activists had been able to help citizens from African countries and Afghanistan to escape. He says Russia's tactics in recruiting foreigners to its army are no different to its approach when recruiting its own citizens.

"It exploits the fact that they're not familiar with the law, and are in a precarious financial situation," Chuvilyayev explains.

This article was originally written in Russian.