On April 4, Anchuthengu, a sleepy fishing village along the coast of the Arabian Sea, about 30 km north of Thiruvananthapuram, threw itself into the usual morning bustle, with fishermen getting ready to venture into the sea after a gap of four days. Fishing activities had been suspended here after the ocean swell — triggered by a low-pressure area — flooded the beach and coastal hamlets.
Inside a hut that lies at the edge of the seafront, unprotected by a seawall, Bindu Paniyadima is trying hard to hold back her tears as she mops the floor where seawater had entered two days before. The flooding is not the reason though. It has been three months since her son, Tinu Paniyadima, left for Russia for a job. The 25-year-old was the sole breadwinner of the family after his father, Paniyadima of Koprakoodu, died three years ago in a freak accident on the beach. The incident pushed the family to a financial edge.
“I would not have allowed my son to go abroad, but we are deep in debt. We borrowed money from money lenders during the time of our daughter’s marriage in 2017. Later, when my husband was severely injured after the accident, we had to borrow money again,” says Bindu. She adds that the money lenders then began to send retrievers home. It was then that Tinu decided to go abroad.
Two other young men — Prince Sebastian, 24, and Vineeth Silva, 23 — from the same coastal village, Tinu’s cousins and fellow crew members of a small fishing vessel, also decided to seek their fortunes abroad. The trio borrowed ₹7 lakh each from loan sharks in the area and paid this money to an agent in Thiruvananthapuram to get work in Russia. The agent assured them of a monthly salary of ₹2 lakh each, for jobs to provide security to army installations in Russia.
So far, four people from Kerala have been identified as part of the many in Russia, who have been deceived into fighting the war with Ukraine. While two, including Sebastian, have returned with injuries, two more, including Tinu, are still in the combat zone. The Indian Embassy in Moscow has yet to establish contact with them. The Ministry of External Affairs has written to Russian authorities seeking their early discharge, but the anxious wait of the families of Tinu and Silva continues.
The shock of recruitment
On January 3, amid both tears at bidding their families goodbye and the hope of a better life, the three men left for Russia, where an agent identified as Santhosh Alex received them at the Moscow airport. He then took them to a military camp, where they were told to sign an agreement in Russian.
“We were hesitant to sign the agreement in Russian initially without knowing what it said. However, our agent insisted. Also, there were people from countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal who also signed the document as per their instructions, says Sebastian.
After signing the pact, they were taken on a military vehicle to a training centre, where they had to undergo rigorous training for four weeks, including firing AK-47 and AK-74 rifles, the operation of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), a shoulder-fired rocket weapon. They also learnt how to load arms and ammunition in tanks and other armoured vehicles, and how to operate them.
Tinu’s sister, Tintu, who has been in touch with her brother every few weeks, says he grew suspicious they would be forced to fight against the Ukraine army, by the end of the training. “When they confronted their commander with their apprehensions, he told them that they would be dispatched to the war zone as frontline soldiers in a day or two,” she says.
Sebastian says they cried in fear on hearing this. “But there was no way out for us. We remembered the mounting debt and ramshackle makeshift huts back in the village, which need to be rebuilt every year after bearing the brunt of the rough sea. Every day was a challenge back home, because our lives against the sea too were hazardous.”
He remembers that they had no means to communicate with their families; their passports and all other documents and belongings had been taken away by the agent in Russia. “It was a terrible life, with anxiety and the fear of death staying with us every moment.” Soon after the training they were told to climb into tanks to move towards the frontline for ground combat, says Sebastian, who along with Silva, were asked to operate from inside the same tank, while Tinu was deputed with another military unit.
As darkness fell, the commandant ordered their unit to march towards Ukraine. The stretch they moved through was pitch dark, with the frightening din of gunshots and artillery flares at regular intervals. By the crack of dawn the next morning, their unit had reached a province near Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine. “We could see the movements of the opposition army just around 100 metres away from our positions. We were then told to disembark from the tank and take positions in nearby trenches,” says Sebastian.
However, a bullet shot by the Ukrainians hit Sebastian’s forehead on the left, between his eye and ear, as he was jumping off the tank. As the bullet hit the protective armour first, it didn’t penetrate deep. “I could touch the bullet through the flesh, as I lost sensation due to the impact of the shot, but I couldn’t take it out as it was embedded an inch inside,” he says, touching the scar on his left forehead.
“Despite the injury, we tried to crawl into the trenches. However, by the time I reached the trench, a grenade fired exploded near the tank. I could see a Russian soldier who had moved ahead of me blown into pieces a few meters away,” he says, still in shock and horror. The impact of the explosion dealt a severe blow to him, with the left side of his body getting severely injured. “When I lay upright on the ground with a bleeding leg and forehead, I could smell death. I closed my eyes; the sea in front of my coastal hamlet was all I could see then,” says Sebastian.
When he regained consciousness, he says he was inside a narrow tunnel, just about a metre and a half in diameter, along with three other injured soldiers. “We had to crawl through for about a kilometre, and spent around 36 hours before being shifted to an army-controlled hospital in Ukraine first, and later to Moscow, where I underwent a surgery to remove the bullet,” he says. He was then given a 30-day leave period by his commander to recuperate. This was subsequently extended by 10 more days.
Way back home
Dr. Binu Panicker, a dentist in Moscow, and president of the All Moscow Malayalee Association, says he received a call from Sebastian in the first week of March. Sebastian and David Muthappan of Poovar in Thiruvananthapuram, were sheltering in a church together. Sebastian had left the hospital to get there, guided by local Russians.
Muthappan had reached the church after escaping from the hospital where he was undergoing treatment after being injured in a drone attack by the Ukraine army. He was so traumatised, he could barely speak. Later he spoke about a Russian soldier who helped him escape the hospital, and another who was with him during the drone attack, who died in his arms after being injured. They were looking for drinking water when the attack happened.
Together, they spent about a month in the church, getting food and shelter there, though David had come there even before. “With the intervention of the Indian Embassy, we could arrange for their return within days as the Embassy provided them with an emergency exit. However, Sebastian’s cousins are still on the war front. The Indian Embassy officially requested the Russian authorities to discharge them at the earliest. We are hopeful that they will get a discharge from the Russian Army this week, as it has been around 40 days since the request was officially made,” says Dr. Panicker, who suspects 150-200 Indians are in Russia after they signed agreements in Russian, via recruiting agents.
Migration mess
Unlike the three young fishermen, a group of six youths from Thekkumbhagam in Kollam, were saved in February from being sent to war. Jaison George (name changed), a member of the six-member group, who had reached Russia after paying ₹6 lakh, says, “We read the pact in Russian with the help of the Google Translation app. The pact clearly says we were being recruited to fight against the Ukraine army as frontline soldiers. Upon successful completion of the agreement term, we are also offered permanent resident status in Russia and a Russian passport, among other things,” says George.
They tore up the agreement and sought permission to return to India. “The sub-agent who introduced us to the main agent, provided flight tickets to return to India after realising the trap we were in,” he says. “One of the six tried to take his life after reaching home, as all of us borrowed money from money lenders. The subagent then paid him ₹2.5 lakh from his pocket to clear a portion of the debt. However, we are staring at a bleak future, unable to get out of home,” says George, who is in Mumbai now after returning to India on February 26.
“I can’t go back home with empty hands as my father, an auto driver, borrowed money from a private loan shark. Here, I am trying to find a job to support my family, otherwise we will have to kill ourselves,” he rues.
The latest incidents of Keralites being tricked into joining Russia’s war against Ukraine are not isolated cases. Keralites have voluntarily migrated to strife-torn countries to make a living by risking their lives.
Amid the escalating violence between Israel and Palestine, close to 500 Keralites have migrated to Israel on employment visas since the war began on October 7, 2023, according to Borgian Solomon, a native of Kollam and a former joint secretary of the Israel Malayali Association, who has been working in Israel for the past 16 years.
Ajith Kolassery, Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NoRKA), the State government agency that works for the welfare of the pravasis (expatriates), says that despite the potential risks involved in the migration to war-hit countries, the fact that people continue to travel to countries like Niger, the West African country that witnessed a military coup in July 2023, points to the desperation of people in Kerala to get jobs that will earn them a living so they don’t have to live on loans.
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