Increasing numbers of reports are indicating that some South Asian migrants, traveling via Russia in the search of jobs, opportunities and a better life, are ending up fighting in Russia's army at the front in Ukraine.

To maintain a steady supply of soldiers on the ground in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly relying on foreign contract soldiers from India and Nepal, according to a report by German media outlet ZDF.

But many of the South Asian men are not fighting in Ukraine of their own free will, but instead are being lured into Russia's armed forces by human traffickers and Russian authorities with threats and false promises, ZDF said last Friday (April 26).

The Indian government has already confirmed several deaths, and relatives often wait weeks for any updates of their loved ones.

How social media and local agents are deployed for war recruitment

In early March, India's Central Bureau of Investigation said at least 35 Indian nationals have been sent to Russia through agents. Indian men were recruited through social media and local agents, then trained in combat roles and deployed at frontline bases in the Russia-Ukraine war against their will, the bureau said, adding that some of the men were "grievously injured."

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In January, Nepal asked Russia to send back hundreds of Nepali nationals who were recruited to fight against Ukraine. At least 14 Nepali nationals have died in Ukraine, according to Nepal Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud.

Though some Nepalese and Indian men actively seek to join the Russian military in Ukraine to earn higher incomes than they would back home, others are lured in with false promises of good salaries or are recruited against their wishes.

Some South Asian social media influencers and content creators also share with their audiences tips on reaching Europe, often excluding information about the high risks, dangers and challenges involved.

The ZDF report shows an Indian Youtuber in Saint Petersburg telling his viewers how close the Finnish border is to the Russian city, pointing to a map, "...So you can find out what you can do once you are here," he says, giving the impression, without saying it overtly, that from Russia Europe and its job markets are very accessible.

Indian soldier claims Russian deception 

In mid-March, ZDFheute reported about a group of Indian contract workers in Ukraine who had desperately appealed to their government in a video to allow them to be released. In their video they expressed concern about being deployed to the frontline. According to the German media outlet, the group is now on the frontline in the south of Ukraine.

Gurpreet Singh is an Indian contract soldier in the Russian army currently stationed in the town of Sadowe in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, a few kilometers from the strategic city of Tokmak. He says he was in Russia as a tourist when he was lured into the Russian armed forces.

"A man we met at our hotel promised to show us around, so we went sightseeing. But the visas of several of our group had expired, while others were still valid. It wasn't clear to me that we weren't allowed to travel to Belarus like that," ZDF Frontal reporter Arndt Ginzel quoted Singh as saying in their interview. 

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"We refused for two or three days, but they didn't give us anything to eat and locked us in a dark room. We couldn't talk to anyone. So they forced us to sign," Singh said, adding: "We were arrested and threatened with ten years in prison if we didn't join the army." Singh says the situation in Ukraine is dire.

"We don't get anything to eat. We all get sick. There is nothing to eat, nothing at all… There are dead people everywhere here. And we're all so scared."

Russia on global mission to recruit foreign soldiers, report

Moscow is on a worldwide quest for more combatants, sometimes with the assistance – complicit or not – of informal intermediaries, French news agency AFP reported in February. An apple farmer, an airline caterer and an out-of-work graduate are among the Indian nationals hired by Moscow, with the help of recruiters around the world, for the Russian army in Ukraine, according to AFP.

An Indian translator working in a military recruitment center in Moscow said that his facility was one of a network across Russia.

"Every major city has a recruitment center where foreign nationals are processed," he told AFP journalists in New Delhi. He had personally overseen the enlistment of between 70 and 100 Indian citizens, he said, and claimed the number of Nepali hires was significantly higher.

India cracks down on Russian trafficking network

Indian authorities have said they are in talks with Russia's government about the return of Indian citizens who were tricked into working for the Russian army. In early March, a federal investigation agency said it cracked down on a human trafficking network that duped people to come to Russia under the pretext of giving them jobs.

India's foreign ministry said the government has initiated action against a network of agents who convinced the men into traveling to Russia.

"We remain committed to the early release of our nationals serving as support staff with the Russian army and their eventual return home," said Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.

Promises of support jobs with the Russian army is "fraught with danger and risk to life," he added.

Is Russia targeting citizens in low-income countries? 

Ukraine has called on countries to prevent their citizens from being recruited into the Russian army in its war in Ukraine. In mid-March, Petro Yatsenko from Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said five men from Nepal, and one each from Cuba, Somalia and Sierra Leone had been recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine and consequently became prisoners of war.

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"By showing these citizens who are captured, we are saying that perhaps it is necessary to use more radical, more effective steps so that tens, hundreds of these people won't be conned by agitators," Yatsenko told reporters in Kyiv.

"If we take a country with a low level of income per population, there is a high probability that some citizens of that country may be recruited by Russia and used as storm troopers, cannon fodder," he added.

Russia has not commented on allegations by Asian, Latin American and African countries that it is recruiting their citizens to fight.

Russia frequently accuses Ukraine of also having "foreign mercenaries" on its side, a claim that Kyiv denies.

With Reuters, AP and AFP