‘You escape, or you die’: African men say Russia duped them into fighting in Ukraine

Nairobi
 — 

Anne Ndarua fights back tears when she talks about her only son. Six months ago, Francis Ndung’u Ndarua went to Russia on the promise of a job as an electrical engineer. She hasn’t been able to reach him since October and is no longer sure if he’s alive.

In December, someone sent Anne a video of her son warning other Africans not to travel to Russia for any job offers. “You’ll end up being taken to the military even if you’ve never served in the military, and you’re taken to the frontline battle. And there are true killings,” he says in the video, sent from an unknown Kenyan number. “Many friends have died in the name of money.”

About a week later, a disturbing video of Francis went viral on social media. In uniform, with a land mine strapped to his chest, he appears scared as a Russian speaker, using racist slurs, says he will be used as a “can-opener” to breach Ukrainian army positions.

“It’s so traumatizing,” Anne told CNN, saying she hadn’t watched it after her daughter described the video to her. Distraught at his plight, she only agreed to be interviewed as a last-ditch effort to try to jolt the Kenyan and Russian governments into action.

“I’m appealing to the Kenyan and Russian governments to work together to bring those children home,” she said. “They lied to them about real jobs and now they’re in war with their lives in danger.”

Francis, 35, was unemployed and living with his mother in a small community outside the Kenyan capital before he left, having paid about $620 to an agent to facilitate the opportunity. Anne was surprised when Francis informed the family he was being forced into military training when he got to Russia. He was deployed to Ukraine after just three weeks of basic training, she says.

Francis is one of a growing number of Africans fighting for Russia in Ukraine, though exact figures are not known.

A CNN investigation has uncovered new details around the recruitment tactics of Russian agents on the continent, exposing the rosy promises made to African job hunters and the reality of forced military service and bloody frontline fighting that many instead find. CNN reviewed hundreds of chats on messaging apps, military contracts, visas, flights and hotel bookings, as well as gathering first-hand accounts from African fighters in Ukraine, to understand just how Russia entices African men to bolster its ranks.

Several African governments, including Botswana, Uganda, South Africa and Kenya, have acknowledged the scale of the problem. Local media have detailed how citizens were duped into becoming mercenaries for Russia in Ukraine and officials have warned others against following suit.

Russia’s Defense and Foreign Ministries have not responded to CNN’s request for comment on allegations that some recruits were misled or coerced. CNN also reached out to the Russian embassy in Nairobi for comment.

CNN spoke with 12 African fighters still in Ukraine – from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda – who said they were offered civilian jobs such as drivers or security guards. Most said they were promised a signing bonus of $13,000, monthly salaries as high as $3,500, and Russian citizenship at the end of their service.

But when they landed in Russia, they say they were forced into the military and given little training before being deployed to the front line. They were made to sign military service contracts in Russian without lawyers or translation provided, they said. Some had their passports confiscated, effectively making it impossible to flee.

Even though Russian law states that only foreigners who know the language can become soldiers, none of the Africans interviewed by CNN were Russian speakers. Their salaries and bonuses differed to those offered to Russian soldiers, and even varied between the recruits. Some also accused unscrupulous recruitment agents or Russian colleagues of stealing from their bank accounts. CNN has asked the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

“While we were on the front lines, a Russian soldier forced me to give him my bank card and PIN at gunpoint,” one African fighter told CNN on condition of anonymity. When he checked, nearly $15,000 from his bonus had been withdrawn, leaving his account nearly empty, he said. “I’ve been here for seven months, and I haven’t been paid a single cent. They keep promising to check but nothing happens.” Four others who came to Russia with him have died, he said while fighting back tears.

The translated clauses of the Russian military service contract CNN obtained paint a far more binding and long-term picture of service than recruitment agents typically advertise: beyond the headline promise of pay and benefits, the contract locks a serviceman into broad, open-ended obligations, including participation in combat operations and deployments abroad, strict loyalty requirements and an obligation to reimburse the state for military training if required, with the actual sum left blank at signing. The fine print also extends into civilian life: access to state secrets can trigger bans on foreign travel, mandatory surrender of passports, limits on privacy and lifelong restrictions on disclosing sensitive information.

While recruitment agents advertise quick pathways into civilian employment, the contract states that meaningful help with post-service jobs – through free professional retraining in a civilian specialty – only becomes available after at least five full years of service (excluding time spent in military education), and only if dismissal occurs for specific reasons such as age, health or contract expiration.

The picture painted on social media is very different. “For those of you in Africa, in Nigeria, who want to join the Russian army, it’s very, very, easy and very good, no stress,” an unnamed Nigerian man in Russian military uniform says in one widely shared video. He mentions his home state in Nigeria, introduces a Venezuelan man sitting next to him, and says his experience is good.

“How can you ask an international military man what my salary is?” Ghanaian soldier Kwabena Ballo admonishes on his TikTok page, also wearing a Russian army uniform. “My salary can feed your father, mother and whole family for, like, two or three years,” he says in Pidgin English. While some of the social media videos posted by Africans are in English and French, many are in languages like Igbo, Swahili and Twi, to appeal directly to audiences in target countries.

But all but one of the dozen African recruits currently in Ukraine who spoke with CNN were desperate to leave, including those who had previously served in their own country’s militaries.

Most described forced conscription into a deadly war with countless casualties, racism from Russian commanders, unpaid salaries and no ways out. They told of seeing the bodies of fellow Africans rot in the battlefield for months, countrymen losing limbs without compensation and constant psychological abuse from Russian soldiers.

“The war here is very hot, and many people are dying on both sides,” the sole African fighter who told CNN he wanted to serve out his contract said in a video message. “This was not the expectation of these guys who came to fight. They thought it would be a bit easy for them as mercenaries.”

Facing huge manpower pressures as its war in Ukraine nears the four-year mark, Russia actively promotes the participation of African recruits in its army as part of a broader PR narrative.

State TV and regional lawmakers spotlight individual stories – such as African-born fighters receiving Russian citizenship, public congratulations from lawmakers and televised send-offs framed as orderly and honorable – to portray foreign recruits as committed and thankful contributors to Russia’s war effort.

Patrick Kwoba, 39, was convinced by an African friend in the Russian military to sign up, after seeing how good his life looked via social media. A carpenter who had also worked on construction sites in Qatar and Somalia, he paid a Kenyan agent about $620 on the promise that he would get a signing bonus of $23,000 in Moscow.

“I thought I was going to be a security guard in the army, not a combatant,” he told CNN in Nairobi, where he had returned after deserting. He describes the four months he spent in Ukraine as “hell” and considers his return home a miracle. He was given just three weeks of basic military training and firearms handling, he said, before being deployed to Ukraine.

A few weeks in, Kwoba was injured in an ambush by a Ukrainian drone and subsequent grenade attack, but said his Russian partner turned hostile rather than help. “When you’re wounded, the code is ‘3-star’ when you ask for first aid. I told my Russian partner that, but he chased me away and started shooting at me,” Kwoba recalled. He eventually got help – but knew he had to flee before he could be sent back to fight.

“So long as you’ve stepped in the Russian military, you escape or you die,” he said. “There’s no way that you’re going to Russia and you’ll come back alive. Because if you finish your contract, these people force you to stay there. They can’t release you.”

He escaped when he was given time off to recuperate in St. Petersburg, managing to reach the Kenyan embassy in Moscow and getting onto the next flight home. Embassy staff issued him a temporary travel document to avoid detection, he said, since he’d overstayed the single-entry tourist visa he used to enter Russia in September 2025.

Kwoba still needs surgery to remove fragments from his buttocks and back thighs. But he knows he’s lucky to be alive.

Kenyan photographer Charles Njoki, 32, also found out the horrors of the war firsthand. Hoping to earn more to support his pregnant wife and family, he applied directly to a Russian army recruitment portal for a drone operator role and got a response within two hours, he told CNN. He sold his car to pay for his flight and accommodation and landed in Russia within a week, planning to surprise his parents with a big windfall and Russian citizenship at the end of his service. His plans quicky went awry.

His wife miscarried while he was in training, but he didn’t find out for a few days as the recruits’ phones had been confiscated. He learned to assemble and disassemble first-person view drones but never got to fly them when he was deployed to the front. A few weeks later, a Ukrainian drone attack left him with a limp left hand and a spinal issue that requires surgery. “A Russian doctor told me they’re only interested in the two fingers I use to shoot,” he told CNN in Nairobi.

Njoki claims African fighters were deliberately exposed in dangerous situations as bait for Ukrainian drones. “They tell people that you’re going to guard the place, that you won’t go to the front as an assault, but you find yourself at the front, fighting.” He too ran away from St. Petersburg, reaching the Kenyan embassy in Moscow, from where he made his way home.

“They’re lying to people. The money that they tell people that they’re paying, that is not true,” he said of the Russian recruiters.

Ukraine has urged African nations to halt the flow of men to Russia’s ranks.

“If they’re on the front lines, they’re our enemies and Ukraine defends itself,” the country’s ambassador to Kenya, Yurii Tokar, told CNN. “This pipeline should be stopped.”’