Russia has repeatedly told Nigerian students and other African students that they will have their visas renewed if they agree to join their troops in the fight against Ukraine.
Bloomberg said, in a report, that some European officials said the Kremlin is doing so to add firepower to its assault against Ukraine.
Moscow has also been enlisting convicts from its prisons while some Africans in Russia on work visas have been detained and forced to decide between deportation or fighting, one European official said.
The report said Russia had done something similar when the war first started to protect more highly trained troops in risky offensives.
According to reports citing Ukrainian intelligence, Russia has engaged in a global recruitment drive to enlist foreign mercenaries in at least 21 countries, including several nations in Africa. Army recruitment campaigns offer lucrative signing bonuses and salaries for those who’ll join up as contract soldiers. Recruiters have also targeted migrants and students who previously looked for employment in Russia, and in some cases have lured others over with promises of lucrative work before forcing them to train and deploy to the front.
The Russian military lost more than 1,200 people a day during May, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, its highest casualty rate of the war. Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has seen some 500,000 personnel killed or wounded, the UK estimates. Bloomberg is unable to independently verify these figures.
The government in Kathmandu said earlier this year that it is aware of about 400 young Nepali men who have been recruited by Russia but many more have likely signed up without the government knowing. India’s decision to stop recruiting Nepalese Gurkhas for its army, ending a 200-year-old tradition, may have encouraged Nepalis to look for work in Russia and elsewhere.
A senior Ukrainian official said they have seen an uptick in the number of foreign fighters among the prisoners Ukraine has captured on the battlefield. Africans and Nepalis have been particularly common, they said.
There are 35,000-37,000 African students currently in Russia, according to Yevgeny Primakov head of Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization devoted to spreading knowledge about Russia abroad. He added that about 6,500 students are signed up to study in Russia for free.
