They promised them jobs and sent them to the trenches. Who is really fighting for Moscow in Ukraine?

Currently, 27,407 foreigners from 135 countries around the world are known to have been recruited into the Russian army for the war against Ukraine, the Coordinating Staff for Prisoners of War in Kiev reported on Monday.

“As of today, the 'I want to live' project has already published data on over 10,000 identified living and fallen foreigners in the Russian army, coming from various corners of the world. In total, we currently know about 27,407 foreigners from 135 countries of the world, recruited into the Russian army,” we read in a message on Telegram.

The Coordination Staff noted that there are hundreds of foreigners who previously served in the Russian army in Ukrainian captivity, and their number is still growing. Ukraine's armed forces take one to three third-country nationals prisoner every week. In 2025 alone, the Russian army will include hundreds of people from Arabic-speaking countries in Africa and the Middle East.

“Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Algeria, Syria, Morocco, Jordan – this is by no means a complete list of countries in the Arab world whose citizens the Russian Federation is recruiting to participate in the war against Ukraine,” the Coordination Staff emphasized.

The “I Want to Live” project published a film about five such mercenaries – “adventurers” from Egypt, Yemen and Somalia. “They all claim that they went to Russia to earn money, but as a result they ended up on the front line,” explained the Coordination Staff.

Earlier on Monday, Andriy Czerniak, a representative of military intelligence (HUR), said that the names of over 1,000 have been confirmed so far. Cubans fighting on the side of Russia in the war with Ukraine. In fact – as noted – the number of mercenaries from this country may reach up to 15,000.

Exact statistics on the number of foreign soldiers in the Russian army are not public. According to HUR estimates from December 2025, over 18,000 people have participated in the war against Ukraine so far. foreign mercenaries. However, the website slidstvo.info emphasizes that these are only identified people, so there may be many more such soldiers.

From Kiev Iryna Hirnyk (PAP)

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