Drafted by Deception: African migrants in Russia’s war

“I went to study. I found myself on the front line. I didn't know where I was going. I signed a paper in Russian and they sent me to war.” (6)

Koulékpato Dosseh, a student from Togo, went to Russia to study agriculture and, after a series of misleading events, found himself a prisoner in Ukraine with his legs cut off and his identity lost, no longer Russian, soldier or citizen. His story is not an exception, but indicative of a conscription policy implemented by the Kremlin, massively conscripting African migrants and students to cover losses on the war front in Ukraine (4); (2); (3).

The state narrative begins with a promise of study, work or a visa, but the terms change under the pretext of licence renewals or “job interviews”. Student visas are converted into recruitment contracts, signatures are transferred to documents written in Russian, and conscription becomes a one-way street. In the accounts of those recruited, the point of no return always comes without explanation – as if they crossed an invisible line with no turning back (4); (2); (3).

Dosseh’s testimony reflects the violent deprivation of free will in the form of coercion. He went to Russia hoping to get an education and a job, and ended up on a front that wasn’t his, in a war that didn’t concern him, fighting for a country that used him and abandoned him. When asked by the journalist how the Russian commanders treated him, he replied clearly: ‘No, they didn’t treat us like Russians. The equipment, the treatment, everything was different.’ (4).

And yet, this policy is no secret. Already, since January 2024, Putin’s decree allows for the rapid granting of Russian citizenship to any foreign citizen who enlists in the Russian army for at least one year. The ‘passport to the Russian land of promise’ is in fact a passport to the trenches of Kherson (4); (2); (3)

License in exchange for blood

With Putin’s executive order in January 2024, the Russian Federation fundamentally changed the way it recruits soldiers, making identity trading official state policy. The fear of deportation, which for many is like a death sentence, is now the enlistment officer’s key tool. As Bloomberg reveals, in several cases, students and immigrants from Africa are faced with ultimatums: either sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence or be deported immediately. Some try to bribe officials to avoid conscription, but most fail (2); (5).

Some were promised labour jobs, others for cleaning or working in police stations. But behind every ‘support position’ lay the war front. The turning point for student Koulékpato Dosseh was signing a contract for ‘work’; he did not speak Russian and never understood what he had signed. Within a few weeks, he found himself covered in blood, crawling through the snow, after four of the six members of his unit were killed on his first mission (5)

Russia is not asking for their return. Their home countries either ignore their case or threaten them with imprisonment for participating as mercenaries. Ukraine, on the other hand, does not recognise them as legitimate combatants. They are trapped in a legal limbo, enlisted without status, prisoners without status. As one Ukrainian official put it: “Russia does not need them. Their homeland does not want them. Ukraine does not recognise them either”(4).

Thus, the visa, the coveted document for dreams of study or work, becomes a ticket to death. From documents in Russian signed without translation to the erased traces of the dead, the narrative of “participation” becomes a ritual of disappearance. The conscript belongs nowhere, becoming only a pariah soldier of an imperial illusion (4); (6).

From the Factory Corridor to the Moat

Another story comes from Jean Onana, who, when he saw the job advertisement for a shampoo factory, felt that luck had smiled on him. Jean was a father of three children in Cameroon, unemployed. Upon his arrival in Moscow, however, instead of a production line, he found himself with a weapon in his hands and an order: ‘To the front.’ All he had signed up for was to abandon his life as he knew it (1).

From factories in Alabuga to camps in Lugansk, the map of migrant recruitment is carved out of broken promises. Many young Africans arrive in Russia to study or work but men are not the only tools for continuing this war; women are also involved. The Global Initiative and testimonies on FRANCE 24 reveal that hundreds of young African women were transported to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone with promises of education and work in hospitality, only to end up assembling Shahed drones in factories. There, they worked 12 hours a day, under surveillance, with lung complications due to toxic substances, without the possibility of leaving. Most did not even know what they were making. It was only when the factory was hit by Ukrainian drones in April 2024 that they realised they were working on a military target. Some were injured. None of them had consciously chosen to fight (1); (5); (6). The company Albatros LLC, as revealed in an investigation by FRANCE 24 and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, was the intermediary — ostensibly private, but essentially part of the Kremlin’s war plan (6).

The line between worker and soldier is completely blurred in the case of Malik Diop. A law student in Russia, he accepted an offer to wash dishes for $5,700 a month in Lugansk. In his second week, he was carrying grenades and walking through forests littered with corpses. ‘I started seeing dead bodies everywhere. I couldn’t take it,’ he told the Ukrainians who arrested him (1);(6).

The distinction between civilian employment and military service is deliberately vague, the contracts are signed in Russian, and ultimately the training is inadequate. Russia is creating a new category of people: employees without salaries, soldiers without identity, victims without justice, in the end of the day, puppets in a geopolitical theatre (2); (5); (6).

A New Wagner by Another Name

After Wagner’s (a Russian paramilitary force linked to the Kremlin)downfall, Russia did not abandon its policy of paramilitary recruitment; instead, it relaunched the same model under the name Africa Corps (a Kremlin-backed military unit replacing Wagner for foreign recruitment), a new entity under the control of the Ministry of Defence. Although presented as a peacekeeping force for Africa, in practice it functions as a reservoir of expendable human resources for the front lines in Ukraine (5).

According to the Institute for the Study of War, since February 2025, the Russian authorities have stepped up recruitment through social networks and local media, offering packages of benefits, training and high salaries as incentives. However, the ‘peaceful’ mission of the new recruits is proving to be illusory: their contracts provide for the possibility of their transfer to Ukraine without warning (3).

Candace Rondeaux, an expert on Wagner, points out that Africa Corps is almost an exact replica of Wagner in terms of structure, management and operational logic, just without the brand and publicity. The Kremlin uses Africa Corps to maintain its presence in Africa, retain access to minerals and regimes, and, when necessary, channel combat personnel to the Ukrainian front  (5).

New recruits are often drawn from vulnerable social groups. Candidates come with the hope of a position in safe missions, but find themselves without training, without knowledge of Russian, and with a war contract in their hands (5).

A farewell in silence

The Africans who found themselves in the trenches of Ukraine, because of a promise or a lie, are leaving the stage of history just as they entered it, invisible. Not as fighters with an ideology, but as migrant workers, pawns in a geopolitical conflict they did not choose (1).

Their mission was a repetition of colonial patterns, from the fringes of the global South, expendable cogs in a machine. Their deaths are not worthy of remembrance, summarily erased at the international level, perhaps the only ones to write anything about them are their families on social media searching for them (6); (2).

The cruelest irony? Their return was never part of the plan. Ukrainian officials confirm that no exchange of African prisoners has been requested. Perhaps, if we listen to them again, it will become evident that these men were not ghosts of a war, but witnesses to an international crime without a name. And that every recruitment based on lies is not just a strategy, but a ritual of violence that requires light to be shed on it and memory to be preserved (5).

References:

1.Farmer, B., Barnes, J., & Rushton, J. (2025, June 9). Russia hired African farmers to make shampoo, then sent them to war. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/09/russia-sent-african-shampoo-makers-die-ukraine-front-line/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first

2.Kulakova, M. (2024, June 10). Kremlin Recruits African Migrants and Students to Join Russian Troops in Ukraine War. United24
https://united24media.com/latest-news/kremlin-recruits-african-migrants-and-students-to-join-russian-troops-in-ukraine-war-reports-bloomberg-648

3.Institute for the Study of War. (2025, May 21). Russian Force Generation and Adaptations Update. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-force-generation-and-technological-adaptations-update-may-21-2025

4.UNITED24 Media. (2025). African Recruit in Putin’s army: Tricked, Betrayed, Abandoned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4p2NsJgLHE&t=1s

5.Kosoy, D. (2025, May 20). Sold for a Passport: Russia’s Recruitment Pipeline Sending Young Africans Into Its War. UNITED24.
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/sold-for-a-passport-russias-recruitment-pipeline-sending-young-africans-into-its-war-8509

6.Chaussoy, L., Sané, S., & Kouho, M. (2025, June 13). Putin’s recruits: The young Africans fighting for Russia in Ukraine. FRANCE 24. https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20250613-putin-recruits-africans-fighting-for-russia-ukraine-black-wagners