In the Donetsk region, Ukrainian intelligence officers discovered the body of a foreign mercenary who fought as part of the Russian forces. This is Clinton Nyapara Mogesa, a citizen of the Republic of Kenya born in 1997.
The Main Intelligence Directorate (known as GUR) of the Ministry of Defense reported this in a telegram.
According to GUR, the man previously lived and worked in Qatar, then signed a contract with the Russian Armed Forces.
After a short training, he was sent to one of the assault units of the Russian army. Mogesa died during the so-called meat assault in the Donetsk region. The Russian military did not evacuate his body, and the family of the deceased did not receive any compensation or official explanations from the Russian Federation.
During the examination of the murdered mercenary, the passports of two more Kenyan citizens were found, who were probably also recruited by Russia to participate in the fighting.
The Military Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has warned citizens of other countries against traveling to the Russian Federation and any work on its territory, as this may result in forced dispatch to the front without proper training and a chance of survival.
Russian mercenaries in foreign countries
In the full-scale war against Ukraine, mercenaries from at least 48 countries are fighting on Russiaʼs side. In Moscow alone, more than 1 500 foreigners could be recruited into the Russian army from April 2023 to May 2024.
Currently, there are established facts of recruitment of citizens of Nepal and Somalia into the Russian army. The Russian Federation also recruited illegal migrants from the Finnish border into its army who were trying to get to the EU through Russia. As for citizens of Nepal and India, some of them are already in captivity or have died. There are already videos on social networks with Africans as part of the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine.
The Kremlin also cooperates with the North Korean army — its soldiers are involved in fighting in the Kursk region. In September 2023, a scheme to recruit mercenaries for the war in Ukraine on the side of the occupiers was exposed in Cuba.
In April 2025, Volodymyr Zelensky said that two Chinese citizens who fought as part of the Russian army were captured in the Donetsk region.
AP wrote that Russian recruiters are luring Bangladeshi citizens into supposedly civilian jobs and then sending them to fight against Ukraine.
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