{"id":1428602,"date":"2026-08-16T21:52:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T18:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/russia-recruited-nearly-three-thousand-mercenaries-from-37-african-countries-for-the-war-against-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T08:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T05:22:11","slug":"russia-recruited-nearly-three-thousand-mercenaries-from-37-african-countries-for-the-war-against-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/russia-recruited-nearly-three-thousand-mercenaries-from-37-african-countries-for-the-war-against-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Recruited Nearly 3,000 Africans From 37 Countries to Fight Against Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 2,982 Africans from 37 countries have been recruited into Russia\u2019s Armed Forces, according to Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Ministry. Ukraine has confirmed that 486 of them have been killed, while 35 citizens from 17 African countries are being held as prisoners of war.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is reported by “Social.”<\/p>\n

The largest number of Russian recruits was recorded among citizens of Kenya, Egypt, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Algeria, and Mali.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the request of journalists, stated that Russian special services use various methods of recruiting foreigners. Among them are offers of civilian work or training, promises of high salaries, Russian citizenship, and other social benefits.<\/p>\n

“To attract Africans, Russian special services use a wide arsenal of manipulative methods aimed at coercion and deception,” the Foreign Ministry reported.<\/p>\n

According to the ministry, in some cases, foreigners are forced to sign military contracts in Russian under threat of deportation or imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is trying to counter the recruitment of African citizens. Ukrainian diplomatic institutions inform local officials about such cases and conduct information campaigns.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, has also created a special web resource<\/a> in English, French, and Swahili. The site contains data on Russian recruitment methods, testimonies of victims, analytical materials, and recommendations for potential victims and their families, as well as mechanisms for reporting the activities of recruiters.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Main Intelligence Directorate reported that Russia plans to recruit a record 18,500 foreigners to its army in 2026.<\/a> According to Ukrainian intelligence, foreign mercenaries remain an important resource for the Russian army amid significant losses in the war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Recall that Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa reported\u00a0that\u00a01,780 Africans from 36 countries were involved in the war against Ukraine by Russia<\/a><\/span>. According to him, 272 Ghanaian citizens have been involved in the war since 2022, 55 of them have died, and 2 more are in captivity.<\/p>\n

Also, follow \u201cPryamyi\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0X<\/a>,\u00a0Telegram<\/a><\/span>, and Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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At least 2,982 Africans from 37 countries have been recruited into Russia\u2019s Armed Forces, according to Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Ministry. Ukraine has confirmed that 486 of them have been killed, while 35 citizens from 17 African countries are being held as prisoners of war. This is reported by “Social.” The largest number of Russian recruits was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":1360930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76874],"class_list":["post-1428602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1428602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1428647,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428602\/revisions\/1428647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1360930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1428602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1428602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}