Lies, horror, trauma: How Kenyans fell victim to Russia's war recruitment

The scars on Victor’s forearm constantly remind him of the day a Ukrainian drone attacked him after he was forcibly conscripted, like hundreds of young Kenyans, into the Russian army.

It was a war that had nothing to do with him and one he was exceptionally lucky to survive.

Four Kenyans, Victor, Mark, Erik, and Moses, recounted to AFP the web of deception that led them to the killing fields of Ukraine. Their names have been changed for fear of reprisals.

It began with promises of well-paid jobs in Russia from a Nairobi recruitment agency.

Victor, 28, was meant to work as a salesman.

Mark, 32, and Moses, 27, were told they would become security guards.

Erik, 37, believed he was headed for a career in elite sports.

They were all promised monthly salaries of between Sh129,500 (US$1,000) and Sh387,000 (US$3,000), a fortune in Kenya, where jobs are scarce and the government encourages labour migration to boost remittances.

Victor, Mark, Erik, and Moses were added to WhatsApp groups where fellow Kenyans reassured them in Swahili that they were heading for lucrative jobs and exciting new lives.

Instead, Victor’s first day was spent in an abandoned house three hours outside Saint Petersburg.

The next day, he was taken to a Russian military base, where soldiers presented him with a contract written in Russian, which he could not read. “They told us: ‘If you don’t sign, you’re dead,’” Victor told AFP, showing his Russian military service record and combat medallion.

Victor later met some of the Kenyans from the WhatsApp group in a military hospital. “Some had no legs. Some were missing an arm. They told me they were threatened with death if they posted anything negative in the group,” he said.

Mark said new recruits were offered the chance to buy their way home for about Sh516,000 (US$4,000), an impossible sum. “We had no option but to sign the contract,” he said.

Erik’s first day involved training with a basketball team, and he signed what he believed was a contract with a professional club.

He did not realise it was a military contract. The following day, he found himself in an army camp. Mark and Moses say they were paid very little during their year of service. Victor and Erik say they received nothing.

The four men travelled to Russia through a Kenyan recruitment agency, Global Face Human Resources, which boasts on its website: “Let our HR wizards connect you to exciting opportunities.”

AFP was unable to reach the agency, which has relocated several times within Nairobi in recent months.

One of its employees, Edward Gituku, is being prosecuted for “human trafficking” after a police raid in September on an apartment he rented on the outskirts of the city. Twenty-one young men who were about to fly to Russia were rescued during the raid.

Gituku, who was released on bail, denies the charges, his lawyer Alex Kubu told AFP.

Former soldiers

Victor, Mark, Erik and Moses all say they met Gituku and that he played a central role in the scam. Erik and Moses say Gituku even drove them to Nairobi airport.

Gituku’s former lawyer, Danstan Omari, told Citizen TV in September that Global Face Human Resources had sent “more than 1,000 people” to Russia, but insisted they were all former Kenyan soldiers who had “voluntarily” joined the Russian army.

Around the same time, Mikhail Lyapin, a Russian citizen implicated in the case, was expelled from Kenya “to stand trial in Russia” at Moscow’s request, Kenyan Foreign Secretary Abraham Korir Sing’Oei told AFP.

The Russian embassy in Kenya said in a press release that Lyapin had left voluntarily and had “never been an employee of Russian governmental bodies”. It did not respond to emailed questions from AFP.

In December, Kenyan authorities said about 200 citizens had been sent to fight in Ukraine, with 23 since repatriated. This figure is an underestimate, said the four recruits who spoke to AFP.

Before departure, recruits were required to undergo medical tests. One Nairobi clinic told AFP it examined 157 such individuals in just over a month last year. “The majority were former Kenyan soldiers” who knew what awaited them,” a clinic worker said.

While there have been reports of Kenyan mercenaries fighting for Russia, Mark and Erik, who were examined at the clinic, said they were never informed they would be enlisted into military service.

Victor and Moses were examined at another Nairobi facility, Universal Trends Medical and Diagnostic Centre, which declined to disclose how many clients were referred by Global Face Human Resources.

AFP identified two other agencies sending Kenyans to Russia, but could not reach them.

The founder of Global Face Human Resources, Festus Omwamba, visited the Russian embassy in neighbouring Uganda several times last year, a source close to the mission told AFP.

Omwamba did not respond to AFP’s calls.

In the early stages of the invasion, Russia was accused of deploying its ethnic minorities, Chechens, Dagestanis and others, as expendable forces, overwhelming Ukrainian positions through sheer numbers.

The cost has been devastating. Western intelligence estimates suggest Russia has suffered more than 1.2 million casualties, double Ukraine’s toll, forcing Moscow to seek recruits further afield.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Kenya, Yurii Tokar, said Russia first targeted former Soviet states in Central Asia, then India and Nepal, before turning to Africa. The four returnees said they encountered dozens of Africans in training camps and on the battlefield, including Nigerians, Cameroonians, Egyptians and South Africans.

Russia exploits the “economic desperation” of young Africans, Tokar said. “They are looking for cannon fodder wherever they can find it.”

Frontline horrors

Victor described harrowing scenes near Vovchansk in the Donbas. “We had to cross two rivers with bodies floating in them. Then there was a huge field covered in hundreds of corpses. We had to sprint across it, with drones everywhere,” he said.

“The commander told us: ‘Don’t try to escape, or we will shoot you.’”

Of the 27 men in his unit, only two made it across. Victor survived by hiding beneath a corpse, but was hit in the right forearm by drone shrapnel.

After two more weeks of missions, during which he could not carry his weapon, and maggots infested his wound, he was finally evacuated for treatment.

Weeks later, Erik was sent to the same area, despite the heavy losses. Of the 24 men in his group, only three survived: A Pakistani with both legs broken, a Russian whose stomach was ripped open, and Erik.

Though he initially escaped uninjured, Erik was later struck in the arm and leg by drone fire.

Mark’s shoulder bears scars from a grenade dropped by a Ukrainian drone as he headed to the front in September. He does not know the location. All three eventually reached a Moscow hospital before escaping to the Kenyan embassy, which facilitated their return home.

Moses fled his unit in December and contacted Kenyan officials. Though physically unharmed, he remains deeply traumatised. Even the sound of birds triggers panic, he said.

Many Kenyan families, however, have suffered far worse.

Grace Gathoni, now a single mother of four, learned in November that her husband Martin, who had planned to work as a driver in Russia, was killed in combat. “Moscow has destroyed my life,” she told AFP through tears.

Charles Ojiambo Mutoka, 72, learned in January that his son Oscar had been killed in August. His remains lie in Rostov-on-Don.

The Russian authorities “should be ashamed”, he said angrily.

“We fight our own wars and never bring Russians to fight for us, so why take our people?”