Non-Russian Soldiers Forced to Fight Against Ukraine Exposes Russia’s Desperation

“Putin is waging a war buttressed by an invisible army of the coerced and forgotten.”

That quotation comes from an analyst working for The Atlantic Council, a think tank oriented toward closer relationships between nations on both sides of the Atlantic. He discussed Russia’s recruiting troops from Third-World countries to fight in its war against Ukraine.

Recruiting is too kind a word. Russian agents use fraudulent tactics to lure laborers into Russian service. Only when the victims have no other recourse do they find out that their days could well end as Russian cannon fodder.

An “Easy” War Becomes Difficult

The war in Ukraine proves, if anyone needed proof, that Winston Churchill was correct when he described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Vladimir Putin’s effrontery stunned the world when Russia invaded on February 24, 2022. The “experts” agreed that Ukraine was fated to lose. It should have taken only hours, a few days at most, before Russian troops occupied Kyiv and the entire nation. Reportedly, Russian assassination squads searched diligently for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It seemed that the next scene would feature Mr. Zelenskyy in a body bag.

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The U.S. military was no more optimistic. When President Biden offered a helicopter so Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could escape, the Ukrainian president surprised everyone. “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” In a video message relayed by CNN, he elaborated, “I am here. We are not putting down arms. We will be defending our country, because our weapon is truth, and our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will defend all of this.”

To many, it resembled the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. An overwhelmingly better-prepared country invaded a helpless neighbor. The neighbor fought valiantly, but the outcome was inevitable—the stronger nation would prevail. Russia had to win.

Ukraine’s Valor Upsets Putin’s Plans

Ukraine surprised everyone. They slowed, stopped and, in some cases, reversed the Russian advance. During the first five weeks, Russia seized 120,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. In a couple of months, Ukraine reclaimed almost half of that land. The Ukrainians’ surprising effectiveness was only exceeded by the Russians’ incompetence. Their troops were unprepared, their weapons ineffective, and their tanks bogged down in the mud.

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Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” became an all-out war. He drafted more troops, but that, too, was unexpectedly difficult. The sons of men who suffered through the Soviet Union’s nearly decade-long (December 1979 to February 1989) Afghanistan invasion were not thrilled to shoulder weapons for another military quagmire. Everyone who could legally avoid the army did so. Others simply fled.

In June 2025, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) tabulated Russia’s costs since January 2024.

“Since January 2024, for example, Russia has lost roughly 1,149 armored fighting vehicles, 3,098 infantry fighting vehicles, 300 self-propelled artillery, and 1,865 tanks.” Their gains over that period were paltry—5,000 square kilometers. “Even more noteworthy,” CSIS continued, “Russian equipment losses have been significantly higher than Ukrainian losses, varying between a ratio of 5:1 and 2:1 in Ukraine’s favor.”

A Disintegrating Army

The cost in lives is even more startling. “Russia will likely hit the 1 million casualty mark in the summer of 2025…. Overall, a high of 250,000 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine, with over 950,000 total Russian casualties.” That figure is roughly fifteen times as high as total losses in the Soviet Union’s Afghanistan debacle.

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Finding more troops became imperative. However, they had to come from somewhere outside Russia.

The war was only seven months old when Radio Free Europe reported on the plight of Central Asian migrants.

“With the prospect of recruitment drives especially unpopular in cities like Moscow, it is not surprising that a disproportionately large part of the fighting has fallen on soldiers from what migration researcher Yan Matusevich calls ‘the poorest and [most] remote regions of the country, many of which happen to be populated by non-Russian ethnic minorities.’”

Turning to Old Allies

Many of Putin’s troops come from independent countries that were once part of or allies of the former U.S.S.R. Many reports, for instance, record a strong presence of Cuban forces in Ukraine.

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Last April, the Korea Times reported that “North Korea on Monday confirmed for the first time that it has deployed troops to support Russia in Moscow’s war against Ukraine…. The North’s deployment was made by ‘the order’ of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in accordance with Pyongyang’s mutual defense treaty with Moscow, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.” Some ten thousand North Koreans went to the much-fought-over region near Kursk. Tens of thousands more might soon follow.

At about the same time as the Korea Times story, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Ukrainians had taken two Chinese prisoners-of-war and suspects that many more Chinese are fighting alongside the Russians. Other reports mention African recruits who suffer a similar fate.

Enslaving Foreigners to Fight

However, The Jerusalem Post also reported a more troubling development.

“A human trafficking network extending from New Delhi in the north to the southern state of Tamil Nadu used social media platforms and local agents to lure people to Russia by offering them lucrative jobs or admission to what India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) called ‘dubious private universities,’ Reuters reported. Once they reached Russia, however, the victims’ passports were taken, and they were trained in combat roles before being deployed at the front.”

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The Russians use similar tactics to lure men from other Central Asian countries into the war. According to CSIS, Russian operatives move about the region with tales of lucrative employment opportunities in Russia. Such stories encourage men from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan to cross the border. Then the Russians declare them to be illegal aliens, confiscate whatever papers they may have, and force them into military training.

Ukraine claims that over 2,500 “soldiers” have been recruited from the four countries. Three hundred seventy have died in battle.

A Desperate Situation Demanding Action

The dragooning of unwilling men into battle demonstrates Russia’s desperate situation in Ukraine. It should also serve as a reason for the West to apply severe sanctions against Russia. In a world that rightly deplores human trafficking, these cases require urgent attention.

Such tactics to obtain recruits violate every norm of modern warfare and international law. It is time for the West to act. The dire straits of the Ukrainian people demand it. The poor victims of this false “recruiting” also call upon civilized nations to react.

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