South Africans lured to fight for Russia in Ukraine are on their way home

The last of the South Africans lured into fighting for Russia against Ukraine arrived in Moscow on Monday morning, 23 February and will soon fly home, according to a relative.

Four of the original group of 17 who had been fighting on the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region returned last week. The majority of the remaining men were driven by bus from Ukraine to Moscow at the weekend, Nombuyiselo Mukansi, the aunt of one of the young men coming home, told Daily Maverick.

She expressed relief that they were at last out of the war zone and safely in Moscow, though she was not sure when they would fly back to South Africa. She said their relatives had spoken to the men while they were in transit on Sunday and then heard from them on Monday morning that they had arrived in Moscow.

Mukansi was not completely certain about the number of men in the remaining group. “According to our knowledge, it’s 13, though we are not certain. All we can say is that the remaining men are now in Russia. We hope it’s 13.”

News24 reported on Monday that 11 of the remaining 13 South Africans had reached Moscow, while an injured member of the group was hospitalised and another member had decided to remain in Russia.

Mukansi confirmed media reports that two of the men had been injured but said that the families would only be able to assess the extent of the injuries once the men were home. The Sunday Times reported that one man had had a foot amputated after being injured, and another was injured in a drone attack.

It also reported that one of the original group was missing. However, someone close to the men pointed out that the original group had comprised 19 men — 17 South Africans and two from Botswana — and added that the family of the two Botswana men had not heard from their sons since August last year.

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President’s intervention

The South African men appear to have been freed from their combat duties on the extremely perilous front line in Donbas by the intervention of President Cyril Ramaphosa with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ramaphosa called Putin on 10 February, and Ramaphosa’s office said the two presidents “pledged their support to the process of returning South Africans fighting along Russian forces in Ukraine”.

This call followed weeks of lower-level diplomacy, which seemed to yield no results.

Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told Daily Maverick: “As [Presidency spokesperson Vincent] Magwenya has previously stated, the matter was discussed at the highest level of leadership of both Russia and South Africa. The process to secure the return of South African citizens from the Russia-Ukraine front lines remains under way.”

Magwenya said, “We will issue a statement once we have secured the return of all the men. The process to secure their return remains ongoing.”

Former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla has been accused, alongside two others, of conning the 17 men into fighting for Russia in Ukraine. It is understood that several of the men are members of the Zuma family. The men were allegedly told they would receive security training.

Zuma-Sambudla and the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party have denied they duped the men, claiming they were also victims of fraud by intermediaries.

Another of Zuma’s daughters, Nkosazana Bonganini Zuma-Mncube, accused Zuma-Sambudla of trafficking Zuma family members to Russia.

Zuma-Mncube (41) said in a statement in November that eight of her relatives were among the 17 who had been “lured to Russia under false pretences and handed to a Russian mercenary group, Wagner, to fight in the Ukraine war without their knowledge or consent”.

Zuma-Mncube said she had lodged charges of contravening the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act, the Foreign Military Assistance Act, as well as the commission of the common law act of fraud against Zuma-Sambudla (43).

According to their families, the men were recruited on the understanding that they would receive training in VIP protection in Russia. Instead, they were whisked away to the front line in the Donbas with very little training.

A continental problem

Many Africans from other countries are suffering the same fate, said Thierry Vircoulon, senior researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, and Vincent Gaudio, co-founder and investigator at Inpact, a Swiss NGO, at a webinar organised by the European Union on Friday, 20 February.

Gaudio said Inpact’s ongoing research showed that between 2023 and 2025, 1,417 Africans had been recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine, mostly from Egypt, Cameroon and Kenya. He added that Cameroon had suffered the highest number of deaths, 94, followed by Kenya and Egypt.

Vircoulon said his research, based on extensive testimony from recruits and their families, as well as social media, had revealed that most of the Africans were unaware they were being recruited into combat roles.

However, once in Russia, “They were made to sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence… They were sent for very basic military training. And then they were sent to the front line, and they were doing the most dangerous jobs on the front line.”

Gaudio said his research also showed the African recruits were all sent into combat and none were given other jobs, such as logistics.

Vircoulon said the main channel of recruitment was online, though also through the private Russian military company Wagner and recruitment agents in African countries. He said the South African case seemed unique, as the recruitment had been done by a political party “aligned to Russia” — the MK party.

He said Russia was recruiting in Africa and elsewhere abroad because it was unable to recruit enough soldiers in Russia.

Vircoulon said African governments were now beginning to wake up to the problem, starting with Kenya, which had stated that an estimated 200 Kenyans were fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Kenya had arrested about 20 people as they were about to leave for Russia.

The Nigerian government had also expressed concern about the recruitment and was going to put pressure on Russia, and Vircoulon said he expected there would now be many more repatriations.

He predicted this could become a “global headache for Moscow”.

Many of the African fighters wanted to be repatriated, said Vircoulon. He believed about 30 Kenyans had gone home. He expressed some surprise that Russia had agreed to release them, but thought Moscow was trying to avoid antagonising African governments.

Gaudio said some African recruits were politically engaged and were opposed to Europe. Others were attracted by the promise of getting Russian citizenship easily or the promise of high pay or of civilian jobs, such as cleaners, carpenters or drivers.

But this was a trap, as behind these job offers there was just a contract with the Russian army. Some recruits had gone to Russia on student visas, and when these expired, they were offered the choice of going home or getting a new visa — and going into the army.

The cost of war

Liubov Abravitova, director for Africa and African regional organisations in the Ukrainian foreign ministry, and former ambassador to South Africa, said Russia was recruiting Africans because it was losing so many of its own soldiers in the war against Ukraine.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, it had lost 1,254,450 soldiers and a significant amount of military equipment, including approximately 11,500 tanks, 37,000 artillery systems, 435 aircraft and many hundreds of rocket systems, she said.

“The cost of occupying one kilometre of Ukrainian land for the Russian army amounts to 156 soldiers. And unfortunately, African youth are among this number.”

Abravitova added that for the 2025-2026 academic year, the Russian government had significantly increased the number of its scholarships for Africans to more than 5,000. These scholarships had “a hidden recruitment dimension, forming the platform for the future use of these individuals for military purposes,” she said. DM