Former South African President Jacob Zuma's daughter was recruiting young men for Putin's army

Duduzile Zuma, the daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma and current MP, is accused of recruiting around 20 young men from South Africa and Botswana who ended up on the front line in Ukraine after being promised jobs in a bodyguard training programme. The revelations were published by Bloomberg, which cited sources familiar with the situation and WhatsApp correspondence.

Duduzile Zuma, daughter of the former South African president/PHOTO:X

According to the source, the group of young people would have gone to Russia in July, after being contacted directly by Duduzile Zuma. She allegedly told them that they would attend a training course to become bodyguards for her father's political party, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP).

Relatives of some of the participants told Bloomberg that they signed military contracts written entirely in Russian, mistaking them for documents for the training program. They later arrived in the combat zone and lost contact with their families starting in August.

Bloomberg says it has obtained photos showing the youths on their way to Russia, and later in camouflage uniforms, with instructors. In the exchanges of messages between parents and Duduzile Zuma, journalists saw how she assured them that no one would be sent to the front.

“As we speak we are preparing to be moved into the war zone”one of the young people wrote to him, asking why their phones and bank cards were being confiscated.

“It's not the front. They just want to scare you”Zuma allegedly replied. In other messages, he claimed the youths would “just patrol” or be put “to kitchen work or cleaning weapons”, even promising to “personally retrieve” them if they ended up on the front lines.

Zuma reportedly told some that he had followed the same training course: “They will challenge you, as they did me. But I trust that everything will be fine.” Relatives say, however, that later it became difficult to contact him, sometimes for periods of up to a month.

Duduzila Zuma, pro-Russian social media influence campaigns

Duduzila Zuma's name has been linked to pro-Russian influence campaigns on social media in the past. She posted messages of support for Vladimir Putin on the X platform, images from Russia and photos of her father with the Kremlin leader. She is currently on trial for inciting violence in 2021, when an estimated 350 people died in riots that broke out after her father was jailed.

The information comes two weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered an investigation into how South African citizens were recruited as mercenaries for Russian forces. On November 6, the presidential administration announced that 17 South Africans stranded in Donbas had requested help from the authorities.

Both mercenary employment and fighting on behalf of a foreign state have been criminal offenses in South Africa since 1998.

On November 11, the South African website News24 reported that Jacob Zuma had sent a letter to the Russian Defense Minister requesting the removal from the combat zone of 18 men who had been “misled” into signing an infantry contract in the Pskov region, near Estonia.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, numerous reports have indicated the recruitment of African nationals for the Russian military. In September, Business Insider Africa reported that Kenya had opened an investigation after finding Kenyan nationals fighting in the conflict. Last week, Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said more than 200 Kenyans were in the ranks of the Russian military. On November 7, Reuters quoted the Ukrainian foreign minister as saying that more than 1,400 Africans are fighting on Russia's side.

The “I Want to Live” project previously published lists that included 16,894 foreign nationals from 121 countries and unrecognized territories who fought or are currently fighting for the Russian military. Among them are 4,658 citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, 1,013 African citizens and 9,961 people from other states and regions. At least 678 of these foreigners are currently confirmed dead.