Putins Verzweiflung kommt ans Licht, als Russland Ostafrikaner dazu bringt, in der Ukraine zu kämpfen

Vladimir Putin has sent young men trafficked from Kenya to the frontline in Ukraine, after luring them to Russia under false pretences, according to documents seen by *The i Paper*.

The Russian President’s operatives have targeted East African men aged 18 to 35 and enticed them to the country with the promise of a better life, briefings to Whitehall officials reveal.

*The i Paper* has been shown evidence of an organised recruitment network co-ordinated between the [Russian military,](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/ukraine-punching-holes-russian-air-defence-4615920?srsltid=AfmBOoqGVNYNZ6hSycIn3DSsCjwek2sJNfuQW24QT8RY0z0b3Jr2AcQi&ico=in-line_link) recruitment agents, and brokers in African countries.

Victims have been offered fake government jobs or student visas to convince them to travel to Russia, before they are sent to fight on the frontline.

[Putin is trying to replenish his military forces](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/putin-considering-mass-mobilisation-war-could-destroy-him-4608155?ico=in-line_link) four years into the war, after the loss of more than half a million Russian soldiers.

Some men have been targeted through recruitment agencies or online job advertisements, while others were sent to fight in the Ukraine war after arriving in Russia on temporary work or student visas.

The recruitment has disproportionately focused on men aged 18 to 35, who can face unemployment, insecure migration status and acute financial pressures, including rent and family responsibilities, the documents show.

Some victims have been forced to help recruit others through word of mouth, once they are in Russia.

Ugandans are also believed to have been targeted in East Africa, Ghanaians and Nigerians in West Africa, and Botswanans in Southern Africa.

Asked in an interview with *The i Paper* about the trafficking, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the tactic reflected Putin’s willingness to exploit anyone to sustain the war. “Putin is just exploiting anyone and everyone in any way that he can, and he simply does not care,” she said.

Cooper criticised Putin’s “disregard for human life, his disregard for anyone and everyone, and his willingness to throw other people’s lives away for what is effectively a warped ideology”.

Moscow is now spending more on compensation to families of dead Russian soldiers than it is on salaries for serving troops – reflecting the sheer scale of the battlefield losses, according to a senior Western intelligence source.

Whitehall officials have received briefings from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence agency that claim 2,965 African nationals had signed Russian military contracts by April this year. At least 316 are said to have died.

In February, Kenya’s National Intelligence Service estimated the number of Kenyans recruited at 1,000, according to security sources.

The *i Paper* has seen testimony from a Kenyan retail worker who was trafficked to Russia and later repatriated to Kenya after being treated in hospital for injuries sustained in a drone strike on the frontline.

Struggling with no income and searching for a new job in Kenya, he had approached a Nairobi agency that promised lucrative jobs supporting government offices abroad.

He claimed he was given false assurances about a high salary, bonuses and no hidden fees. After completing a medical and paying an unexpected “immigration fee”, the man travelled to Russia.

After arriving in the country, he said his passport was seized and he was forced to sign a military contract, which he did not understand and for which there was no translation.

His testimony states that he was taken to a military training camp, where he faced racial abuse and maltreatment by other soldiers and was placed under intense surveillance.

After only five days of training, he claimed he was sent to the frontline, where he witnessed extreme violence, including wading through fields of dead bodies.

He alleged that he was injured by a drone, and transported to hospital after suffering signs of necrosis on one of his hands. Eventually, he was repatriated after he was able to leave the leave hospital for the Kenyan Embassy, according to his testimony.

The trafficking network has also relied on recruits, who have already been lured to Russia, to sell the scheme to others.

Another Kenyan man is believed to have been coerced into sending a video to friends and family back home to encourage others to travel to Russia for work. *The i Paper* has seen a transcript of the footage.

“Bro, we’re okay here. I’ve already gotten my money… The salary is okay. I just work in the military camp as a cleaner,” he told them.

Additional evidence points to Russia’s growing recruitment of foreign fighters from Africa. Most foreign recruits enlisted by Russia originate from economically disadvantaged areas of the Global South, according to a report by the independent human rights organisations Truth Hounds and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

The report’s findings, released in April this year, aligned with Ukrainian intelligence estimates, which put the total number of foreign recruits fighting for Russia since the war began at more than 27,000 from 130 countries. It estimates that Russia will target a further 18,500 recruits in 2026.

Several African governments, including in Botswana, South Africa and Kenya, have acknowledged the problem.

A joint investigation by the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, which verifies deaths using only publicly available records such as official Russian announcements, family social media posts and grave photographs, has confirmed by name 523 foreign nationals killed fighting for Russia, from 28 countries. The two organisations say the true toll is almost certainly far higher, given the limitations of public-record verification and Russia’s lack of transparency over foreign casualties.

The recruitment drive has been driven by a collapse in Russia’s ability to fill its ranks domestically. New military recruitment fell by around 20 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, analysis by Janis Kluge, a German Institute for International and Security Affairs researcher found.

Russia recruited around 70,500 new contract soldiers between January and March 2026 – equivalent to roughly 800 recruits a day, down from an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 a day during the first quarter of 2025, according to Kluge’s research.

This is despite the Kremlin continuing to raise financial incentives. Domestic recruits are offered a typical upfront payment for joining the military of 1.9 million roubles (£18,100) before salaries and other benefits.

Another central question is whether Russia’s current rate of losses is sustainable. At least 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the war in February 2022, according to the UK’s largest spy agency. Total Russian casualties, including those killed, wounded and missing, are estimated to be 1.4 million.

Cooper said the scale of Russia’s losses underscored the Kremlin’s disregard for the lives of its own citizens. “I think it’s clear that Putin is failing in his war aims, and the scale of Russian losses shows how little he cares in any way about his own citizens,” she said.

Putin’s strategy is “depraved and deluded, built on a willingness to sacrifice its own people,” she added.

Asked what she would say to the mothers of Russian soldiers sent to the frontline, Cooper said: “It’s unfathomable. It must be unbearable for so many families, for so many Russian mothers, to be losing their children to Putin’s brutal war that achieves no purpose and will continue to face the determined resistance from the Ukrainian people.”
While it is too early to conclude that the war has decisively turned against Russia, there is a growing view among military analysts that Russia’s battlefield momentum has stalled.

According to a senior Western intelligence source, if a worm had left Rostov-on-Don on the day of the invasion and travelled at roughly the pace Russia has advanced in some sectors of Ukraine, it would now be somewhere in central Poland.

The UK has sought to reinforce its position as one of Ukraine’s strongest European backers ahead of next week’s NATO summit, coupling fresh commitments to Kyiv with renewed warnings about the growing threat posed by Russia.

However, the government’s messaging has been overshadowed by a political row over defence spending. Questions remain over how the UK’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP) will be funded, with critics arguing the proposals put forward by Keir Starmer on Tuesday fall short of the level of investment needed to meet NATO’s increasingly ambitious spending expectations and will leave Andy Burnham’s government with a £4.7bn blackhole.

Cooper said it is “clear” that the Government is going to need to “need to go further” on defence spending.

“The post-Cold War peace dividend that we all relied on has disappeared. And that means Europe has to do more for its own defence,” she said.