Russia recruited hundreds of Peruvian citizens to fight against Ukraine. They thought they had secured lucrative jobs in Russia, but instead ended up on the front lines.
This is reported by CNN, whose journalists spoke with the relatives of the recruits.
Most of those recruited come from poor families. They were promised legal work, high salaries, and the prospect of obtaining Russian citizenship.
One of the Peruvians told his mother in late January that he was going to work as a cook in the Russian army. He later sent a video of himself digging trenches with other foreigners in the territory of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia.
After that, the man reported that the commander had punished him for “inappropriate behavior”. Soon, contact with him was completely lost.
Another woman, Rosa, said her husband went to Russia expecting to work as a security guard. However, journalists reviewed his correspondence with a recruiter, which shows that he signed a one-year contract to serve in the Russian army.
His wife received the last message from him on March 26. The man wrote that he was being transferred, ordering him to take his weapons and personal belongings.
Peruvian prosecutors have opened a case of recruitment of citizens of the country into the Russian army and are classifying these actions as possible human trafficking. According to official data, law enforcement officers have already received 36 reports of people disappearing and their alleged forced participation in Russiaʼs war against Ukraine.
Peruʼs Foreign Ministry said it had sent at least 247 official requests to Russia regarding its citizens. At the same time, a lawyer for the recruitsʼ families Percy Salinas suggests that in total, about 800 Peruvian citizens may have been recruited into the Russian army.
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 in the ranks of the Russian army were captured in the Donetsk region.
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