11 September 2026 , 20:38
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Russia tricks and coerces foreign nationals into fighting on Moscow’s side in the war against Ukraine, exploiting their dire economic situations and precarious migration status. A study by Amnesty International published on Sept. 10 asserts that some of the documented cases qualify as human trafficking under the definition of the UN Palermo Protocol.
According to data provided by Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, by April 2026 Ukraine had identified at least 28,391 foreigners from 136 countries who had taken part in combat as part of the Russian army (not counting those from regular North Korean units). Amnesty International itself notes that it could not independently verify these figures.
While conducting the study, human rights researchers made six visits to two prisoner-of-war camps in western Ukraine, where they spoke with citizens of Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Somalia, and South Africa. Amnesty International also collected testimony from foreigners still serving in the Russian army, as well as from their relatives and lawyers.
According to Amnesty International, foreign citizens were lured to Russia with promises of high pay and expedited citizenship in connection with jobs in security, logistics, construction, IT, and other fields. However, upon their arrival in the country, some were made to sign documents in Russian, a language they did not speak. Among those documents was a contract with the Russian army.
Nalin, a Sri Lankan national (name changed by Amnesty International), says a middleman promised him work as a security guard. He came to Moscow with 58 other Sri Lankans. The group was met at the airport and taken to an office, where they were told to quickly sign documents in Russian without translation. According to Nalin, he did not understand what was happening. Among the papers he signed was a military contract. After a brief training, he was sent to the front. Nalin’s account matches the testimonies of two other Sri Lankans interviewed by Amnesty International, who added they never even received the promised pay.
In late 2025, a South African national referred to in the study as Joseph responded to an online job posting for a driver in Poland. An intermediary explained that he first had to fly to Moscow, pick up a truck there, and drive it to Poland. After Joseph departed, the agent stopped responding. According to Joseph’s wife, upon his arrival in Moscow he had “everything taken away.” He was told he would not be going to Poland and that he “was a soldier now.” The family says Joseph was never paid for his service either.
Another interviewee, Brazilian IT specialist Pedro, was offered a well-paid job in his field in Russia. Instead, he ended up at the Avangard training center. According to Pedro, his captors confiscated his phone, laptop, and passport. He could not leave the center on his own. When he asked the commander to let him go, the commander reportedly replied: “If you try to run, you’ll either go to prison, or we’ll kill you ourselves.” Pedro spent 11 months in the Russian army before being captured by Ukrainian forces. He, too, says he never received the payments he was promised.
Colombian national Jorge told a similar story. He saw a job posting for civilian work in Russia and flew to Ufa via Istanbul in November 2025. There he was given documents to sign in Russian, with people repeatedly saying “quickly, quickly” and “later.” He was then driven by bus for three days to an unknown location, given a rifle and a uniform (despite his protests that he was a civilian), and ultimately delivered to a trench on the front line.
Another Colombian told Amnesty International that his passport was taken from him at the airport in Ufa. He also spent several days on a bus — along with seven other Colombians and 35 Africans — eventually arriving at a military training ground. According to him, rumors circulated among the recruits that people who refused to go to the front were “disappeared.” When his group was sent forward, he saw that everyone from the previous group had been killed; his group was ordered to keep moving.
The study also describes a different scheme, using Peru as an example. According to a group of Peruvian lawyers, since 2025 intermediaries have been receiving about $2,000 for each recruit they deliver for Russian military service. After arriving in Russia, people were made to sign not only military contracts but also powers of attorney valid for up to 15 years (and sometimes indefinitely). Amnesty International notes that such documents could give third parties access to recruits’ money. Such schemes also operated through agencies in Colombia, and The Insider previously reported on a similar scheme involving stolen payments to Brazilians.
The same Peruvian lawyers told the human rights group that they are assisting 200 families whose relatives went to Russia after being promised civilian jobs. They know of at least 300 more such cases and say that the Peruvian embassy in Moscow has returned at least ten former recruits home. In one instance, a father who had already been caught up in a scheme warned his son to contact the embassy before he, too, was shipped to the front. Recruiters failed to find the younger man, and he ultimately managed to escape Russia.
Yet another scheme involves foreigners already living in Russia. According to Amnesty International, migrants with expired visas or other legal difficulties were offered a contract with the army as a way to avoid detention or deportation — and even to obtain a residence permit or citizenship. Foreign prisoners were also offered the opportunity to join the army instead of serving time. Two Egyptians detained on drug charges said they were threatened with lengthy imprisonment and offered military service as an alternative. A Cuban national sentenced to six years agreed to a contract because he faced deportation after his release from prison.
A refugee from a Central African country told Amnesty International that his temporary protection renewal was denied after he refused to sign a contract with the Russian army. After losing his appeal, he was placed in detention, where representatives of the army approached him and other detainees with new contract offers. A lawyer interviewed by Amnesty International confirmed that Russian immigration offices offer foreigners the chance to legalize their status and obtain Russian citizenship through military service. Human rights defenders argue that when the practical alternative is detention or deportation, this cannot be described as fully voluntary consent.
All of the foreigners interviewed by Amnesty International reported severe restrictions on freedom of movement after signing a military contract — regardless of whether they had joined up voluntarily. People had their passports, phones, and other devices confiscated and were barred from leaving their housing. Some said they were woken up at night, put on buses, and driven for several days to an unknown destination without being told where they were going.
Training before deployment to the front usually took about two weeks. Interviewees complained of equipment shortages and a language barrier that often prevented them from communicating properly with their commanders. Amnesty International believes this practice is part of a Russian effort to increase the number of troops at the front by any means possible.
“The level of exploitation and coercion involved led us to conclude that in many cases this amounts to human trafficking, as defined under the UN’s Palermo Protocol,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said.
In its conclusions, Amnesty International notes that the migration units of Russia’s Interior Ministry and the Russian Ministry of Defense may be directly implicated in these practices. The organization could not establish the exact structure of ties between all of the foreign intermediaries and Russian state bodies involved in the coerced recruitment efforts, but as the report makes clear, the recurrence of identical schemes across different countries points to possible coordination or cooperation between recruiters and the Russian state agencies that send foreigners to the front. Amnesty International stresses that Russian authorities have, at the very least, created favorable conditions for these schemes to flourish and that the Russian military benefits from their existence as a means of replenishing its manpower.
Deputy Editor