In October 2025, as his plumbing contract in Qatar neared its end, Clinton Nyapara Mogesa called his brother, Vincent, in Kenya, to say he had found another job—this time, in Russia. He did not say what kind of work it was.

Two days after arriving in Moscow, Clinton told Vincent that he was beginning military training. Weeks later, he said he was waiting to be deployed. After that, the calls stopped.

The Mogesa family learned what had happened months later from Ukrainian military intelligence, which published photographs of Clinton and reported his death at a Russian-occupied site in eastern Ukraine in January. It was the family’s first confirmation that he had been sent to the front lines.

Clinton Mogesa’s trajectory reflects a broader pattern across Africa, where promises of overseas employment can become entry points into a distant war. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Mogesa was carrying the passports of two other Kenyan citizens at the time of his death, which Ukraine assessed likely belonged to “individuals recruited under similar circumstances and potentially destined for future assault operations.”

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has increasingly turned to foreign recruits to sustain its war effort, drawing in fighters from Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Africa. While foreign enlistment remains a relatively small share of Russia’s forces, Ukrainian intelligence warns that Moscow plans to recruit at least 18,500 foreign fighters in 2026, suggesting that the strategy is likely to intensify.

Across Africa, recruitment has taken root through informal networks promising jobs abroad, blurring the line between voluntary enlistment and trafficking. Nairobi has acknowledged and condemned Russian recruitment within its borders, making Kenya both a destination for families seeking help and a case study into the broader phenomenon.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Ukrainian military estimate that Russian forces have suffered about 1.3 million casualties throughout the war, creating a sustained demand for personnel. After a partial mobilization in 2022, the Kremlin has relied largely on contract soldiers rather than imposing another politically risky wave of conscription. Foreign recruits have become one small part of that system.

According to Kenya’s National Intelligence Service, more than 1,000 Kenyans have been recruited to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine, with 39 hospitalized, 30 repatriated, and 28 missing in action as of Feb. 18. At that time, the Kenyan government also assessed that 35 were in military camps or bases, 89 were on the front line, one was detained, and one had completed their contract. At least one—Mogesa—has been killed, although Ukrainian military intelligence has reported two additional Kenyan deaths, and some families have held memorial services for kin believed to have died in the war.

According to Kenyan authorities, the recruitment pipeline is facilitated by local agencies—some operating informally, others as registered labor export firms—working with intermediaries linked to networks in Russia and the Middle East. These agencies advertise overseas employment targeting former military personnel, police officers, and unemployed young men. The offers include salaries of about $2,700 a month; signing bonuses; and, in some cases, promises of fast-tracked Russian citizenship.

Many recruits believe they are traveling for civilian work as drivers, cooks, or hotel workers, explained Fred Ojiro, who works for Vocal Africa, a Nairobi-based human rights group assisting affected families.

“These are not soldiers who signed up to fight,” Ojiro said. “They are young men who believed they were traveling for ordinary jobs and instead found themselves in a war with no way out.”

But some people sign up to fight willingly, said Pauline Bax, the deputy program director for Africa at the International Crisis Group. Across much of the continent, high youth unemployment and shrinking migration routes to Europe have pushed migrants toward alternatives such as China, the Persian Gulf states, and Russia, where risky job offers can be difficult to refuse.

“People take a chance to go and get a visa for Russia, especially now that visas for Europe have become increasingly difficult,” Bax said. Many migrants, she added, do not fully understand the risks involved.

The recruitment ecosystem operates as a vast, multidimensional network spanning from social media platforms to military simulation video games. Posts promoting military service have proliferated on applications such as Telegram and Russia’s VKontakte. The web integrates a disparate array of actors, including travel agencies in Ghana and Nigeria, diaspora intermediaries in Moscow, and affiliates linked to the Kremlin-funded paramilitary organization and Wagner Group successor Africa Corps.

Intelligence reports describe collusion between recruiters and officials across law enforcement, immigration, and labor agencies. Investigations by local media have documented bribery networks at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport involving airport staff, police, and immigration officers who allegedly facilitated departures knowingly, often in exchange for bribes. When scrutiny increased, recruitment coordinators rerouted recruits over land through neighboring countries prior to flights onward north.

The Russian Embassy in Nairobi said in February that Russian authorities “have never engaged in illegal ‘recruitment’ of Kenyan citizens” and that foreign nationals may enlist voluntarily if they are legally present in Russia.

However, reports of African nationals fighting for Russia have also emerged in Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and Botswana, and in November, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that people from at least 36 African countries had been identified among those fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

The human toll is also growing. The French Institute of International Relations estimated in December that 50 Burkinabé recruits and 150 Cameroonians had been killed, although these figures are difficult to verify, and official confirmations remain significantly lower. In April, the Cameroonian government said 16 of its nationals had been killed while fighting for Russia in Ukraine—marking the first time that it acknowledged its citizens’ involvement in the war.

Governments across Africa have responded unevenly to these reports. South Africa’s government said in February that it had worked with Moscow to secure the release of 17 citizens from contracts with Russian military units and facilitate their return home. In December, Botswana’s government said two young men had been misled into joining the Russian military and that it was pursuing “diplomatic channels” to determine their status and facilitate their repatriation. There has been no update since.

Elsewhere, governments have been even quieter, even in countries such as Nigeria, where recruits have been identified. “Some African governments do not want to rock the boat,” Bax said. “It is easier to turn a blind eye.”

Governments may be reluctant to act more forcefully due to broader dependence on Russian grain, fertilizer, and military cooperation in parts of the continent. Other governments lack the institutional and technical capacity to track citizens abroad. In some cases, officials may simply be avoiding highlighting a problem that they cannot solve.

This apathy has pushed some people to seek help elsewhere. Ojiro said he had received calls in recent months from recruits from Uganda, South Sudan, and Nigeria who were in Russia or deployed in Ukraine. “They are reaching out because their own governments are not responding,” he said. “They see that in Kenya, at least someone is listening.”

Kenya has taken the strongest approach to addressing the recruitment of its citizens into Russia’s war, in part due to its active civil society and media sector. Investigative reporting, footage of injured recruits, and mounting domestic commentary have put pressure on Kenyan officials. During parliamentary debates in November, a lawmaker read out the names of five Kenyans allegedly fighting in Ukraine and pressed government officials on what steps had been taken to bring them home.

Kenyan officials have raised the issue with both Moscow and Kyiv. In talks with Russia’s envoy in February, Korir Sing’Oei, Kenya’s principal secretary for foreign affairs, called for “unimpeded consular access” to Kenyan citizens. Separately, he also met with Ukraine’s ambassador to discuss possible repatriation mechanisms.

The Kenyan government has also moved against domestic recruitment networks via arrests, asset freezes, and travel restrictions on suspected recruiters. In late February, Kenyan detectives arrested suspected trafficker Festus Arasa Omwamba, alleging that he is believed to be a “key player in a more extensive human trafficking syndicate” that sent dozens of young men to Russia under false premises.

Still, recruitment networks are transnational and adapt quickly—and governments have limited tools to disrupt recruitment once recruits enter a foreign military system. Kenyan law already prohibits citizens from enlisting in or being conscripted into foreign armed forces without approval from the Kenyan president. The government has said that Kenyans who were enlisted to fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine will be granted amnesty upon their return home.

Bax advised increased scrutiny of recruitment agencies and the visa process, especially where consular oversight is weak. But even with tighter regulation of agencies and travel controls, she said, “it will be extremely difficult to stop this practice altogether.”

Ojiro, meanwhile, advocated for more immediate and direct governmental engagement with Kyiv to secure the return of Kenyans held in Ukraine as prisoners of war.

For those who do return, governments must introduce programs to reintegrate former fighters and provide them with psychological care. According to Kenyan National Assembly majority leader Kimani Ichung’wah, Kenyan investigators plan to record statements from returnees struggling with psychological trauma. The effort appears to be primarily aimed at documenting recruitment networks and gathering intelligence rather than providing structured rehabilitation or mental health support.

Ojiro speaks regularly with relatives of those who have left who are trying to secure the return of their sons or simply seek confirmation of death. “Some of them just want closure,” Ojiro said.

The Mogesa family has reached out to government officials through local leaders, hoping that they can secure the repatriation of Clinton’s body. Weeks later, the process remains stalled.

“We are still waiting,” Vincent said. “We just hope the government can help us bring his body home for burial.”