Russia has recruited more than 1,400 African nationals to fight in Ukraine, with more than one in five reported dead, according to an investigation that for the first time publishes the names of foreign fighters sent to the front lines.
The report, The Business of Despair, by the investigative collective All Eyes On Wagner, documents recruitment networks operating across Africa and Russia.
Founded in 2014, Wagner is a Russian state-funded private military company that conducts covert military operations outside Russia.
With the war in Ukraine entering its fifth year and recruitment from prisons largely exhausted, Russia has increasingly turned to foreign nationals to sustain its military effort.
Families seeking answers
The investigation lists 1,417 fighters from 35 African countries, who enlisted between 2023 and mid-2025. Some joined voluntarily because of the salaries offered, while others were deceived by false job offers or pressured into signing military contracts.
Compiled through NGOs and the Ukrainian programme “I Want to Live”, the non-exhaustive list shows a death rate exceeding 22 percent, not including those wounded or missing.
The recruits are aged between 18 and 57, with an average age of 31.
Egypt has the highest number of recruits, with 361 recorded. Cameroon has suffered the heaviest losses, with 94 deaths among 335 fighters listed. Among Gambian recruits, 23 of 56 contract soldiers have died.
Nairobi sounds alarm over recruiters luring Kenyans into Russian war effort
Far from being marginal, this recruitment forms “the backbone of a strategy built around fighters to be injected into the waves of assaults used to overwhelm Ukrainian defence lines”, the report said.
All Eyes On Wagner's Lou Osborne said the publication of the list should "enable families, who have often been without news for months, to find out the fate of their loved ones, to contact their national authorities to request the return of remains and stranded persons, and to take action against these recruitments, which have become increasingly numerous as the invasion of Ukraine drags on".
The story of Joël and Linda
Joël (not his real name), a 24-year-old, is recorded as having been killed on 24 May, 2025 after going missing 10 months earlier while serving in the 255th Motorised Infantry Regiment.
His wife Linda, also using a pseudonym, told RFI last month she lost contact with him on 26 July, 2024, weeks after he arrived in Russia following promises of a well-paid job that would allow him to support his sick parents and two-month-old baby.
A Cameroonian recruitment agency had promised him travel to Poland, but after a stop in Russia and without enough money to continue the journey, he was forced to enlist in the Russian military.
After two weeks of training, he was sent to the frontline in Donetsk and never contacted his family again. Linda said she now wants to know whether his body was buried and if there is a grave.
Despite requests for comment from RFI, the Cameroonian government has not responded to the reports of its 94 nationals killed in Ukraine, or the testimonies from families of missing citizens.
In March 2025, the country's defence ministry referred to “clandestine departures” and banned uniformed personnel from leaving the country without ministerial authorisation.
'We come here to die': African recruits sent to fight Russia's war in Ukraine
Students and migrants recruited
The investigation documents several recruitment pathways, including fake job offers and pressure on foreign students to enlist.
Malick Diop from Senegal travelled to Nizhny Novgorod to study but is now being held prisoner by Ukrainian forces, according to the report.
One 25-year-old Egyptian graduate of a language programme in Russia was forced to sign a military contract in order to renew his visa.
Togo has said young Togolese citizens were misled by promises of work or education. Illegal migrants arrested in Russia have also been offered residency papers in exchange for joining the army.
The presence of fighters from Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic, previously documented, was confirmed by the investigation.
All Eyes On Wagner identified recruitment networks involving travel agencies in Russia and Africa offering “fast-track procedures” to obtain visas within weeks.
Recruiters used social media platforms and messaging services including Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok to promote life in Russia through images of Moscow skyscrapers and luxury cars.
They promised signing bonuses worth several thousand dollars, monthly salaries of €1,600 or more for specialists, health insurance and simplified access to citizenship.
Several fighters who returned or remain in Russia reported unpaid wages or salaries lower than promised.
A report by French Institute of International Relations researcher Thierry Vircoulon estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Africans were among 18,000 to 20,000 foreign fighters in the Russian army.
“These abusive and deceptive recruitment practices are akin to a form of human trafficking, the most tragic consequence of which is sending amateur mercenaries to the front lines as cannon fodder,” the report said.
Another recruitment channel targeted young women aged 18 to 22, particularly from Côte d’Ivoire, according to the investigation.
How Moscow is reinventing its influence machine across Africa
Kenya pushes back
In Kenya, civil society organisations have protested against recruitment networks, while families and fighters have circulated videos calling for repatriation.
On Tuesday, Kenya’s foreign minister announced a visit to Moscow to “curb” the recruitment, while a senior official denounced “a pattern of luring people and killing them”.
All Eyes On Wagner said two Kenyan companies, Global Face Human Resources Ltd and Ecopillars Manpower, had been dismantled.
According to the investigation, victims signed payment agreements, worth between €10,000 and €15,000, with a foreign company responsible for visas and travel arrangements. The companies’ manager was arrested and a Russian entrepreneur based in Nairobi was deported.
The published list identifies 45 Kenyan recruits. Hundreds more are believed to have passed through Russia, according to reporting cited in the investigation.
Ukraine has also stepped up online campaigns aimed at discouraging Africans from joining the war, including videos showing drone strikes and Russian footage containing racist content.
The All Eyes on Wagner investigation can be read here. This article has been adapted from the original version in French by François Mazet.
