Russia's campaign to recruit foreign nationals into its armed forces for the war in Ukraine amounts to human trafficking under international law, according to a new report by Amnesty International. The human rights group said Thursday that Moscow is using deception, blackmail, document confiscation, and the threat of deportation to coerce migrants and other foreigners into military service.
The findings are based on interviews with prisoners of war from more than a dozen countries held in Ukrainian captivity. Almost all described abuses during their recruitment, including contracts signed without informed consent, confiscated passports, restricted freedom of movement, inadequate training, and threats against those who tried to leave.
Amnesty said these practices meet the threshold for human trafficking under the UN Palermo Protocol, the primary international legal instrument on the crime, which has been ratified by 178 states, including Russia. The protocol defines trafficking as the recruitment, transport, or receipt of people through force, deception, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation.
How the recruitment works
Outside Russia, the recruitment is built on deception. The most common scheme involves fake civilian job offers in logistics, warehouses, or construction, with salaries of around $2,000 a month. Others are promised help obtaining legal passage to the European Union, with Russia presented as a transit country. Once people arrive, their documents are taken.
A third method exploits language barriers: foreign nationals sign what they believe is a civilian employment contract but later discover they have signed a contract with Russia's Defence Ministry. Inside Russia, the methods shift to coercion, targeting labour migrants with irregular registration status and refugees. People detained for immigration violations are offered a choice between immediate deportation—which for many means poverty, persecution, or danger at home—and signing a military contract.
Amnesty said Russian authorities also operate through criminal human-trafficking networks and local intermediaries. The group interviewed prisoners of war from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Somalia, and South Africa.
One of the most widely reported cases is that of Kenyan long-distance runner Evans Kibet, who travelled to Russia for a sporting event and was offered a civilian job before being taken to a training camp. His documents and phone were confiscated after he signed a contract he said he did not understand, and he was sent to the front in Ukraine's Kharkiv region. He surrendered to Ukrainian forces in July 2025.
By recruiting foreign nationals, the Kremlin is also pursuing a domestic political objective: deaths among foreign recruits generate less public reaction inside Russia than Russian casualties, reducing pressure for a new mobilisation wave. This comes as Ukraine's military intelligence chief warns that Europe is finally grasping the scale of Russia's hybrid war.
International reaction
Several governments have lodged formal protests and demanded repatriation. India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ghana, Jordan, South Africa, and Botswana have all submitted diplomatic notes or official demands. Criminal cases have been opened in several countries against local recruitment networks.
Cuba's government described the practice as human trafficking. In March, Kenya's Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi travelled to Moscow for urgent talks. Russia subsequently promised to stop recruiting Kenyan citizens, withdraw surviving Kenyans from the combat zone, and repatriate the bodies of those killed.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the BRICS summit in New Delhi on Saturday that Russia intended to return Indian citizens serving in its military "as soon as their identities are established."
By April, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War had identified 28,391 foreign nationals from 136 countries as having fought in Russia's armed forces. The figure excludes North Korean troops, who joined Russian forces at the front at the end of 2024. Pyongyang deployed an estimated 10,000 troops to support Russian forces, according to South Korean and US intelligence assessments—the first confirmed deployment of a third country's conventional military forces to the war.
Amnesty International sent a request for comment to Russian authorities and received no reply. In May 2025, Russia designated the organisation an "undesirable organisation," a legal classification that bans its presence in Russia and criminalises its activities there. The report adds to growing concerns about Russian hybrid tactics across Europe, as Baltic states and NATO allies step up their response.
