On July 28, 2026, our Association’s experts Borys Babin and Anna Prykhodko participated in the experts discussion about the recruitment of African nationals into Russian aggression against Ukraine. During the meeting, held by the International Renaissance Foundation, the draft of the relevant research, prepared by the “Journalists for Justice” was discussed.
The report stressed that more than three thousand African nationals from 40 countries were documented in Russia’s military recruitment pipeline. Relevant research findings are based on interviews with more than 100 relatives, returnees, and African prisoners of war in Ukraine, as well as serving recruits, escapees, recruiters, government officials, diplomats, law enforcement, and intelligence sources.
Journalists conducted five reporting missions to Ukraine and reviewed relevant documents, communications and information, court records, parliamentary proceedings.
Research has found that Russia’s African recruitment pipeline operated through two overlapping channels: one targeted economically vulnerable civilians with promises of ordinary employment, while the other one deliberately sought serving and former soldiers, police officers, and people with paramilitary training who could be deployed as mercenaries with less preparation.
ARC’s experts discussed the criminal role in those proceedings of such Russian intelligence-controlled networks as the “International Russophile Movement” with its active African development, also as the Crimean traces of relevant criminal recruitment and trainings of Russia’s mercenaries from the African states.
