“We were cannon fodder. Some of us didn’t even know how to fire properly before they pushed us forward.” A South African man said that after learning, too late, that the bodyguard job he had been promised in Russia was a place in the army.
His story fits a pattern the Africa Center for Strategic Studies has laid out. Online recruiters offer young Africans civilian work, study programs, sports places or legal status in Russia. On arrival, many are pressed to sign military contracts written in Russian. Ukrainian officials estimate nearly 30,000 foreign nationals are now fighting for Russia.
Numbers that do not agree
More than 1,700 Africans from 36 countries are believed to be fighting for Russia, going by a leaked Russian database covering 2023 to 2025. That is probably an undercount. A Kenyan intelligence report given to Parliament counted over 1,000 Kenyans alone, which is 2,100 percent more than the Kenyans listed in the leaked records.
The database shows a 22 percent confirmed death rate among the recruits. Ghana’s foreign minister has said 55 of the 272 Ghanaians known to have been lured into the war are dead. Cameroon has recorded 94 deaths and Egypt 52.
Russia needs roughly 30,000 to 35,000 new soldiers a month, according to the Center, and wants to avoid a general mobilization at home. Its Federal Security Service is said to be involved. Some recruits were taken from police custody in Russia and the Central African Republic.
At the front, and in the factories
Returnees describe amputations, untreated trauma, confiscated documents and withheld pay. One said recruits were told to sign and fight or die. Zimbabwe’s information minister, Zhemu Soda, told reporters that for many coerced into combat “the promised remuneration is never paid.” Kenya’s National Assembly majority leader, Kimani Ichung’wah, told lawmakers that arrivals are “basically just given a gun to go and die.”
Others never reach the trenches. Investigators have verified hundreds of African recruits, mostly young women, at the Alabuga drone factory about 1,000 km east of Moscow. They were promised training in logistics, catering and hospitality and were put to work building weapons. Many received a sixth of the pay they were promised and cannot afford a flight home. Interpol has opened an investigation in Botswana over the Alabuga recruitment.
In South Africa, recruits alleged that Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, daughter of former president Jacob Zuma, misled them into believing they would train as bodyguards. She and two others were reportedly paid about $845,000 by the Wagner Group. She resigned her seat in Parliament in December 2025 after a police investigation began.
Governments respond
Officials in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria have raised concerns, summoned Russian diplomats or demanded their citizens back. Kenyan security services raided recruiters’ offices, in one case rescuing 22 people bound for Russia, and tightened airport screening. Ichung’wah said the syndicate was still active and had moved its routes from Istanbul and Abu Dhabi to run through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Africa.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson said in May 2026: “We are unaware of any such cases.”
