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TRANSCRIPT:
“My boy, I spoke with him. I spoke with him yesterday. And all the time my boy is crying when he's talking. All the time he's crying because of the situation.”
In December last year [[2025]], South African father of three Dubandlela was in despair.
His eldest son, at just 20 years old, had been lured to fight in the Russian army as part of an ongoing recruitment scam targeting African citizens.
Offered an enticing salary to become a bodyguard in Russia, Dubandlela says his son was on the frontlines in Ukraine.
“They are working every day. They dig in with the trenches almost every day, and even the training. The training is so hard, they are carrying very huge weapons. The problem, what are they facing for? There's a no water at some stage no food, almost maybe there's few days getting rid of food, and maybe five days they didn't get a food. Even it's so hard even to bath.”
The recruitment scam in South Africa was revealed in November 2025, when the government said it had received distress calls from 17 men who claimed they were trapped in the Donbas region.
Those 17 men have since been repatriated to South Africa, but there are fears that others remain trapped without the ability to contact home.
Brother to one of the scam victims, Phumlani, says his brother held back on telling the family what was really going on.
“They realised something is wrong long time ago, when we talked… around August, yes around August, they realised that there’s something wrong but they didn’t tell us because they didn’t want us to panic.”
Ukrainian authorities say many of the African men captured in their first combat missions have been deployed to high-risk "disposable" roles.
Reports say that most of those recruited in Africa are not professional soldiers, and testimony suggests they receive minimal training ahead of combat.
With Russia losing an estimated 30 to 50,000 soldiers every month, Phumlani says he feared for his brother's life.
“I was angry to be honest. I was afraid that we might lose him cause now he’s speaking about war. People die in a war even innocent people die, even the soldiers die in a war. What about him, he’s not a soldier, he’s just a guy who wanted a better life for him and his children.”
According to Phumlani, his brother didn't buy his own plane tickets to Russia; he was given them after meeting with the daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, who is now under investigation.
Reports in the South African media said the group of 17 men were allegedly sent to Russia for security guard training by the opposition uMkhonto we Sizwe Party, or M-K party , which is headed by Jacob Zuma.
In an effort to distance themselves from the allegations, M-K Party founder Jabulani Khumalo says his party assisted in their return.
“The MK was used by those people who sold our men. As the founder of MKP, I assisted them to come back because I wanted the name of the MKP to be clear that we were not involved on this it was just those thugs who wanted to make quick money out of our men.”
While the South African government was successful in repatriating its citizens, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha says Russia's recruitment tactics are widespread throughout Africa.
"According to our data, there are currently over 1,780 citizens from the African continent fighting in the Russian army. We're speaking about mercenaries here. A lot of them have already died. Quite a few were taken prisoner. According to our data, people from 36 different African countries fight on the side of Russia."
According to officials, the recruitment scam is being driven by economic incentives and the exploitation of vulnerable populations.
The most heavily documented case of the scam is in Kenya, where the National Intelligence Service reports that more than 1,000 Kenyan nationals have been recruited.
In the capital Nairobi Susan Khandasi Kuloba says her 22-year-old son was lured to Russia, thinking he could make enough to support the family.
“I asked him, “What kind of job is this that you keep talking about?” He showed me documents on his phone; I didn’t even know he had gone for medical tests. I warned him, “Russia isn’t a safe country from what I have heard. Can’t you choose somewhere else?” But he insisted, “Mum, it’s just a security job. They’re offering between one and two million shillings. If I work for a year, we’ll be set, and I’ll never have to leave home again.”
Online footage posted to social media purports to offer a glimpse into the conditions faced by African soldiers on the frontline.
In one video, a man is shown with an anti-tank mine strapped to his chest, being ordered at gunpoint in what appears to be a trench.
A Russian speaker then calls him a "piece of coal", telling him he will be the "opener today", seemingly implying the man will be used to detonate the mine to open a Ukrainian bunker.
After he was sent to the frontline, Susan Khandasi Kuloba says she never heard from her son again.
“After a while when he had started going for missions, I kept praying for him because my heart wasn’t settled. Then, he suddenly went off, to this day. I have never heard from him.”
The Russian Embassy in Nairobi denies that Moscow was involved in illegally recruiting Kenyans to fight in Ukraine, though says foreign citizens could voluntarily join its armed forces.
Reading the report of Kenya's National Intelligence Service, Majority Leader of the National Assembly, Kimani Ichung'wah, described a network of rogue state officials he says colluded with human trafficking syndicates.
"The agencies have been enticing Kenyans promising them lucrative terms of service such as salaries of about 350,000 shillings per month and hefty bonuses between 900,000 shillings and 1.2 million Kenya shillings as well as eventually being issued with Russian citizenship."
Reports from Kenya say that recruits were told they would be working in roles such as electricians, plumbers, or personal security.
Upon their arrival, however, they found out the contracts they'd signed, often written in Russian, were in fact military contracts.
Dr Deane Baker is a Professor of Ethics at the University of New South Wales.
He told SBS these tactics amount to forced labour or human trafficking.
"Essentially, anytime somebody is being made to do something without their true consent, that is effectively like a form of forced labour, and so that would constitute human trafficking under most rules, under most definitions of human trafficking. So, you know, you're signing a contract in Russian, you don't actually know what you're agreeing to. There's a level of deception involved in that and so we can't assume that genuine consent in, in those cases."
In 2025, the rate of Russian military deaths grew faster than at any time since the war began.
As Russia runs out of manpower, reports detail recruitment drives also expanding to prisons, the poorest regions of Russia, North Korea, and elsewhere throughout Asia.
Dr Baker says that, given the context of the war, Russia's tactics are completely unjustifiable.
"Modern battlefields are incredibly deadly places, and there's a limit to what states can do, but also the context matters. So if you think of, for example, the Soviet Union resisting the Nazi invasion in World War II, this was an existential threat, and so there was a justification for throwing troops relatively unprepared into battle to try to stop that threat. This is not the context-- That is not the context at all in, in Ukraine. This is a war of choice, and there is no massive need to throw people in, in the same kind of way and so there really is very little justification for it."
In Kenya, a court has now charged the director of a recruiting company with trafficking the victims to Russia for exploitation by means of deception.
Following the repatriation of 17 men, South Africa confirmed two of its citizens had been killed while fighting in Ukraine.
The government says it is continuing investigations into the matter.
While many across the continent remain trapped in Russia's war, African National Congress spokesperson Fanle Sibisi says he hopes the families of those returned can finally have some peace of mind.
"We thank the president. We thank the president of Russia for steadfast leadership that has been displayed and demonstrated in ensuring that the livelihood of our people is taken care of. We hope families will be able to sleep after eight months of not knowing the future of their loved ones."
