Nairobi
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Anne Ndarua fights again tears when she talks about her solely son. Six months in the past, Francis Ndung’u Ndarua went to Russia on the promise of a job as {an electrical} engineer. She hasn’t been capable of attain him since October and is now not positive if he’s alive.
In December, somebody despatched Anne a video of her son warning different Africans to not journey to Russia for any job gives. “You’ll end up being taken to the military even if you’ve never served in the military, and you’re taken to the frontline battle. And there are true killings,” he says in the video, despatched from an unknown Kenyan quantity. “Many friends have died in the name of money.”
About per week later, a disturbing video of Francis went viral on social media. In uniform, with a land mine strapped to his chest, he seems scared as a Russian speaker, utilizing racist slurs, says he will likely be used as a “can-opener” to breach Ukrainian military positions.
“It’s so traumatizing,” Anne advised NCS, saying she hadn’t watched it after her daughter described the video to her. Distraught at his plight, she solely agreed to be interviewed as a last-ditch effort to attempt to jolt the Kenyan and Russian governments into motion.
“I’m appealing to the Kenyan and Russian governments to work together to bring those children home,” she stated. “They lied to them about real jobs and now they’re in war with their lives in danger.”
Francis, 35, was unemployed and dwelling together with his mom in a small neighborhood exterior the Kenyan capital earlier than he left, having paid about $620 to an agent to facilitate the chance. Anne was stunned when Francis knowledgeable the household he was being pressured into navy coaching when he bought to Russia. He was deployed to Ukraine after simply three weeks of fundamental coaching, she says.
Francis is certainly one of a rising variety of Africans fighting for Russia in Ukraine, although precise figures usually are not recognized.
A NCS investigation has uncovered new particulars across the recruitment ways of Russian brokers on the continent, exposing the rosy guarantees made to African job hunters and the fact of pressured navy service and bloody frontline fighting that many as a substitute discover. NCS reviewed a whole lot of chats on messaging apps, navy contracts, visas, flights and resort bookings, in addition to gathering first-hand accounts from African fighters in Ukraine, to know simply how Russia entices African men to bolster its ranks.
Several African governments, together with Botswana, Uganda, South Africa and Kenya, have acknowledged the dimensions of the issue. Local media have detailed how residents had been duped into changing into mercenaries for Russia in Ukraine and officers have warned others in opposition to following go well with.
Russia’s Defense and Foreign Ministries haven’t responded to NCS’s request for touch upon allegations that some recruits had been misled or coerced. NCS additionally reached out to the Russian embassy in Nairobi for remark.
NCS spoke with 12 African fighters nonetheless in Ukraine – from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda – who stated they had been supplied civilian jobs equivalent to drivers or safety guards. Most stated they had been promised a signing bonus of $13,000, month-to-month salaries as excessive as $3,500, and Russian citizenship on the finish of their service.
But once they landed in Russia, they say they had been pressured into the navy and given little coaching earlier than being deployed to the entrance line. They had been made to signal navy service contracts in Russian with out attorneys or translation supplied, they stated. Some had their passports confiscated, successfully making it not possible to flee.
Even although Russian regulation states that solely foreigners who know the language can grow to be troopers, not one of the Africans interviewed by NCS had been Russian audio system. Their salaries and bonuses differed to these supplied to Russian troopers, and even diverse between the recruits. Some additionally accused unscrupulous recruitment brokers or Russian colleagues of stealing from their financial institution accounts. NCS has requested the Russian Defense Ministry for remark.
“While we were on the front lines, a Russian soldier forced me to give him my bank card and PIN at gunpoint,” one African fighter advised NCS on situation of anonymity. When he checked, almost $15,000 from his bonus had been withdrawn, leaving his account almost empty, he stated. “I’ve been here for seven months, and I haven’t been paid a single cent. They keep promising to check but nothing happens.” Four others who got here to Russia with him have died, he stated whereas fighting again tears.
The translated clauses of the Russian navy service contract NCS obtained paint a much more binding and long-term image of service than recruitment brokers usually promote: past the headline promise of pay and advantages, the contract locks a serviceman into broad, open-ended obligations, together with participation in fight operations and deployments overseas, strict loyalty necessities and an obligation to reimburse the state for navy coaching if required, with the precise sum left clean at signing. The high-quality print additionally extends into civilian life: entry to state secrets and techniques can set off bans on international journey, necessary give up of passports, limits on privateness and lifelong restrictions on disclosing delicate data.
While recruitment brokers promote fast pathways into civilian employment, the contract states that significant assist with post-service jobs – by means of free skilled retraining in a civilian specialty – solely turns into accessible after not less than 5 full years of service (excluding time spent in navy training), and provided that dismissal happens for particular causes equivalent to age, well being or contract expiration.
The image painted on social media could be very totally different. “For those of you in Africa, in Nigeria, who want to join the Russian army, it’s very, very, easy and very good, no stress,” an unnamed Nigerian man in Russian navy uniform says in one broadly shared video. He mentions his house state in Nigeria, introduces a Venezuelan man sitting subsequent to him, and says his expertise is sweet.
“How can you ask an international military man what my salary is?” Ghanaian soldier Kwabena Ballo admonishes on his TikTok web page, additionally sporting a Russian military uniform. “My salary can feed your father, mother and whole family for, like, two or three years,” he says in Pidgin English. While a few of the social media movies posted by Africans are in English and French, many are in languages like Igbo, Swahili and Twi, to enchantment on to audiences in goal nations.
But all however one of many dozen African recruits presently in Ukraine who spoke with NCS had been determined to go away, together with those that had beforehand served in their very own nation’s militaries.
Most described pressured conscription into a lethal struggle with numerous casualties, racism from Russian commanders, unpaid salaries and no methods out. They advised of seeing the our bodies of fellow Africans rot in the battlefield for months, countrymen shedding limbs with out compensation and fixed psychological abuse from Russian troopers.
“The war here is very hot, and many people are dying on both sides,” the only real African fighter who advised NCS he wished to serve out his contract stated in a video message. “This was not the expectation of these guys who came to fight. They thought it would be a bit easy for them as mercenaries.”
Facing large manpower pressures as its struggle in Ukraine nears the four-year mark, Russia actively promotes the participation of African recruits in its military as a part of a broader PR narrative.
State TV and regional lawmakers highlight particular person tales – equivalent to African-born fighters receiving Russian citizenship, public congratulations from lawmakers and televised send-offs framed as orderly and honorable – to painting international recruits as dedicated and grateful contributors to Russia’s struggle effort.
Patrick Kwoba, 39, was satisfied by an African buddy in the Russian navy to enroll, after seeing how good his life regarded through social media. A carpenter who had additionally labored on development websites in Qatar and Somalia, he paid a Kenyan agent about $620 on the promise that he would get a signing bonus of $23,000 in Moscow.
“I thought I was going to be a security guard in the army, not a combatant,” he advised NCS in Nairobi, the place he had returned after deserting. He describes the 4 months he spent in Ukraine as “hell” and considers his return house a miracle. He was given simply three weeks of fundamental navy coaching and firearms dealing with, he stated, earlier than being deployed to Ukraine.
A couple of weeks in, Kwoba was injured in an ambush by a Ukrainian drone and subsequent grenade assault, however stated his Russian companion turned hostile moderately than assist. “When you’re wounded, the code is ‘3-star’ when you ask for first aid. I told my Russian partner that, but he chased me away and started shooting at me,” Kwoba recalled. He ultimately bought assist – however knew he needed to flee earlier than he may very well be despatched again to battle.
“So long as you’ve stepped in the Russian military, you escape or you die,” he stated. “There’s no way that you’re going to Russia and you’ll come back alive. Because if you finish your contract, these people force you to stay there. They can’t release you.”
He escaped when he was given time without work to recuperate in St. Petersburg, managing to succeed in the Kenyan embassy in Moscow and getting onto the following flight house. Embassy workers issued him a short lived journey doc to keep away from detection, he stated, since he’d overstayed the single-entry vacationer visa he used to enter Russia in September 2025.
Kwoba nonetheless wants surgical procedure to take away fragments from his buttocks and again thighs. But he is aware of he’s fortunate to be alive.
Kenyan photographer Charles Njoki, 32, additionally came upon the horrors of the struggle firsthand. Hoping to earn extra to assist his pregnant spouse and household, he utilized on to a Russian military recruitment portal for a drone operator position and bought a response inside two hours, he advised NCS. He offered his automotive to pay for his flight and lodging and landed in Russia inside per week, planning to shock his mother and father with a giant windfall and Russian citizenship on the finish of his service. His plans quicky went awry.
His spouse miscarried whereas he was in coaching, however he didn’t discover out for a couple of days because the recruits’ telephones had been confiscated. He realized to assemble and disassemble first-person view drones however by no means bought to fly them when he was deployed to the entrance. A couple of weeks later, a Ukrainian drone assault left him with a limp left hand and a spinal challenge that requires surgical procedure. “A Russian doctor told me they’re only interested in the two fingers I use to shoot,” he advised NCS in Nairobi.
Njoki claims African fighters had been intentionally uncovered in harmful conditions as bait for Ukrainian drones. “They tell people that you’re going to guard the place, that you won’t go to the front as an assault, but you find yourself at the front, fighting.” He too ran away from St. Petersburg, reaching the Kenyan embassy in Moscow, from the place he made his means house.
“They’re lying to people. The money that they tell people that they’re paying, that is not true,” he stated of the Russian recruiters.
Ukraine has urged African nations to halt the move of men to Russia’s ranks.
“If they’re on the front lines, they’re our enemies and Ukraine defends itself,” the nation’s ambassador to Kenya, Yurii Tokar, advised NCS. “This pipeline should be stopped.”’