By AFP | 2024-03-22

KYIV -- Speaking at a recent press event organized by Ukrainian officials, eight prisoners of war (POWs) from Cuba, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Somalia said they were lured with promises of high wages, non-front-line roles or simply tricked.

Organizers defined the men as "mercenaries" from the "global South" and said they were treating them the same as Russian POWs.

While the men said they spoke of their own free will, they were escorted by masked guards who listened as they spoke to journalists.

The Geneva Convention says POWs should be protected from "public curiosity."

AFP did not question the men separately and chose not to name them, although organizers did.

A 35-year-old Cuban man with dreadlocks said he had responded to a Facebook post offering construction work in Russia.

"I didn't think I was coming to the war," he said.

A man from Sierra Leone wiped away tears, saying he had paid a recruiter and flown to Russia for a "good job" to support his large family but had not wanted to join the military.

The security guard said he realized only after signing Russian-language paperwork that he had joined the army.

'They are very tempted'

Petro Yatsenko, spokesman for a Ukrainian office responsible for prisoners of war, said Russia was seeking to recruit from very low-income countries.

"When the Russians offer such people $2,000 a month and say that they will actually be used as bodyguards or on the third line from the front, they are very tempted," he said.

Russia has turned to foreign fighters after running low on mercenaries from the Wagner Group and ex-prisoners, Yatsenko said.

"The percentage of mercenaries is growing" as "Russia's mobilization resource is declining," he said.

Some of the prisoners in Kyiv said they willingly joined the army but did not expect to be sent to the front.

Some said they were told they would be "helpers" for first aid and logistics.

A young Somali man with cropped hair said he had joined up to give his family a "good future."

But "I didn't know that I would be in the first line," he said.

"I was just dropped there without... knowing the language."

A 32-year-old man from Nepal said he had watched TikTok videos about Nepalis joining the army, saying his motivation was "of course about the money."

AFP reporters in India and Nepal have investigated such recruitment, finding it is often done through informal intermediaries and promotional videos posted on social media.

Applicants lacking military experience are initially told they will receive noncombatant roles and the option of permanent residence.

But in reality they receive basic weapon training and are deployed to the front line.

'Duped by recruiters'

Nepal has said five of its citizens are prisoners of war in Ukraine and at least 12 have been killed. It has banned citizens from working in Russia or Ukraine and asked Russia to return recruits.

The only prisoner in Kyiv to speak basic Russian was a 24-year-old Nepali with hands so scarred by war-inflicted burns that he struggled to hold a pen.

He said he was studying and working in Russia when he spotted recruitment posters, expecting to become a "security guard or something like that."

"I don't know what to do, how to shoot," he said.

Yatsenko urged countries to act to stop such people being "duped by recruiters who promise them mountains of gold."

Ukraine is holding foreigners in the same detention centers and treating them the same as Russian POWs.

"They were captured on the front line... in military uniform, with weapons. And whether they are mercenaries will be decided by the court," Yatsenko told AFP.

"We are interested to pass them to their homelands," he added.