Dominican officials spent the final week of September walking a diplomatic tightrope: reassuring anxious families at home while pressing Russian counterparts on a recruitment scheme accused of funneling citizens into combat roles. The scramble followed a string of Instagram clips showing a young man from Higüey in Russian military fatigues, joking with fellow soldiers near sunflower fields — clips that turned far grimmer within weeks.
The Foreign Ministry Sounds the Alarm
On September 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MIREX) published a notice urging citizens to treat any Russia-linked job offer with skepticism, saying it had received complaints tied to postings that may connect recruits to the ongoing war against Ukraine. The ministry recommended verifying an employer's identity and contract terms before agreeing to travel, and cautioned against deals arranged entirely through online intermediaries whose credentials cannot be checked locally.
A Number Nobody Agrees On
Speaking to reporters in New York during the UN General Assembly's high-level week, President Abinader acknowledged the government is investigating the scheme, but cited a preliminary figure of "maybe fewer than twenty" confirmed victims. That number sits far below what human rights advocates describe. The Dominican Committee for Human Rights now estimates that more than 200 citizens have traveled to Russia under various recruitment schemes since May, with at least 50 of them going knowingly to fight while others say they believed they were headed to construction, agricultural or technical jobs. This piece treats the government's smaller figure as the confirmed baseline while flagging the wide gap with outside estimates.
The Soldier Whose Videos Forced a Reckoning
The case that pushed MIREX into action belongs to Juan Carlos Ávila Espaillat, a 28-year-old father from Higüey. A document reviewed by Diario Libre, dated August 16 and attributed to Moscow's Selection Point for Contract Military Service, certifies that he passed a screening process and departed to serve under a Russian Armed Forces contract.
Weeks later his tone shifted. Speaking from what his family says was a military hospital, he described his unit being swarmed by kamikaze drones before he stepped on a landmine while trying to escape. "No siento mis pies. No tengo agua," he said in one clip, adding that he had already undergone two field surgeries. His brother says several members of his unit died in the same strike, including a Colombian fighter identified in earlier videos as Camilo Vargas.
Part of a Much Larger Global Pattern
The Dominican case is one thread in a far bigger story drawing scrutiny at the United Nations this month. Addressing the UN Security Council on September 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow's war effort now draws on fighters from 47 different nationalities. Ukrainian officials, cited in a Kyiv Post analysis published this month, put the broader total at roughly 27,000 foreign recruits pulled from more than 130 countries since the 2022 invasion.
Those numbers gained a legal dimension when Amnesty International concluded, in a briefing released this month, that Russia's recruitment practices meet the legal definition of human trafficking. The findings draw on interviews with prisoners of war and other recruits from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Somalia and South Africa, most of whom described being offered civilian jobs in security, logistics, construction or IT before having their passports confiscated and being pressured into signing military contracts once inside Russia. Ukrainian military estimates, echoed across several outlets covering the recruitment pipeline, suggest a significant share of these foreign fighters do not survive their first few months at the front, though the precise figure varies by source.
Dominican Diplomats Take the Issue Straight to Moscow
Foreign Minister Víctor "Ito" Bisonó raised the matter directly with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, during a bilateral meeting held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly's high-level week in New York. According to MIREX, Lavrov instructed the section of his ministry responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean to follow up on the case, and both ministers agreed to keep an open communication channel on the issue.
What Officials Are Telling Would-Be Travelers
MIREX has pledged consular assistance to any national caught in the scheme and says it will coordinate returns where possible. Authorities are urging jobseekers to confirm an employer's legal existence, insist on reviewing written contracts before departure, and avoid any arrangement that requires flying to Russia before terms are finalized. Mothers from Bajos de Haina, a community north of Santo Domingo that has produced several of the reported cases, have publicly appealed to President Abinader to intervene on behalf of sons they say were misled. For now, the investigation Abinader described from New York is still in its early stages — and the gap between the government's cautious count and the activists' far larger one shows just how much remains unknown.
