By David Herbling, Antony Sguazzin and Volodymyr Verbianyi | Updated on Oct 08, 2026 at 05:58 PM
African nations are calling for Ukrainians to return citizens in its prisoner of war camps after they were caught fighting for Russia.
Kenya’s government is in talks to have five prisoners returned, Foreign Secretary Musalia Mudavadi told lawmakers in Nairobi on Thursday, adding that President William Ruto has called Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the matter. Botswana’s Foreign Ministry earlier told Bloomberg it is seeking to have one of its citizens sent home from a Ukrainian camp.
African nations have said that some of their citizens have been duped into traveling to Russia and then forced into military service. The combatants were told they would be employed in civilian jobs — such as drivers, security guards or cooks — governments have said.
Kenya wants the men designated as “victims of international human trafficking” rather than prisoners of war, Mudavadi said. They “report having been recruited under false promises of employment,” he said.
Zimbabwe’s government, in a statement on Thursday, expressed concern about deceptive cross-border recruitment practices. “Tragically, some recruits have been deployed to active battlefronts in host nations without any prior military training,” it said, without mentioning Russia or Ukraine by name.
According to a Ukrainian government website, Russia has recruited more than 28,000 foreign nationals to fight for it from 135 countries and of those over 5,000 have been killed. Fighters from 51 nations have been captured by Ukrainian forces, the government said. Ukraine is holding at least 213 foreign nationals, excluding Russians and North Koreans, as prisoners of war, according to documentation seen by Bloomberg. Of those, 37 are Africans.
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More than four-and-a-half years of conflict have drained Russian resources since President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow has been widening its search for new recruits to avoid another unpopular mobilization of troops at home.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to an earlier request for comment on whether Russia is using foreign nationals to fight in Ukraine. Russia has never publicly acknowledged doing so, and its official line is that the country has enough manpower for the war.
“From the point of view of the availability of military personnel, we have no problems here,” Putin said in Vladivostok on Sept. 3, dismissing speculation that Russia may announce another round of mobilization. “People are coming forward voluntarily and signing contracts.”
Still, Amnesty International has said that thousands of men from the Global South have been recruited. Many of those have been lured by agents and adverts promising sign-on payments and employment in a range of jobs.
Botswana’s government said on Aug. 21 it stopped eight citizens from being recruited into the Russian military at airports in the country, South Africa and Ethiopia. A month earlier, it issued a public statement warning citizens against getting coerced into fighting for Russia. Zimbabwe has arrested a number of people for attempted recruitment, including two Russians, in recent months. They are now awaiting trial.
Still, there is little chance of them coming home because Ukraine maintains that as prisoners of war they would need to be exchanged for Ukrainians being held by Russia.
Among the Kenyans being held at a camp in Ukraine, the youngest is 23, Mudavadi said. “The circumstances of their recruitment and conscription are consistent with trafficking in persons,” the minister said.
About 84 Kenyans have been killed or are missing in action, while another 34 are hospitalized in Russia, the foreign minister said in an update to parliament. A total of 62 Kenyan nationals involved in the war have been repatriated back home so far, according to Mudavadi.