Huge blow for shameless Putin after Russia lures war recruits from 36 African countries

More than 1,400 Africans have been recruited by Russia between January 2023 and September 2025 to fight in its war against Ukraine, with 16 Cameroonian deaths acknowledged this week alone. Cameroon’s government has said Russia confirmed that 16 of its nationals were killed fighting in Ukraine, though independent monitors have suggested that this may only be a fraction of the true number.

Over 300 African draftees recruited during the 32-month period had died, according to a February report by the Geneva-based All Eyes on Wagner project, including at least 94 of the 335 Cameroonian fighters. “We clearly see that Russia is trying to drag African citizens into a deadly war,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said at the time. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia is enticing Africans with promises of education, employment and high pay, only to then be redirected to combat units.

According to Mr Sybiha, these fighters originate from a total of 36 African countries, including South Africa, Ghana and Kenya, as Vladimir Putin continues to lose frontline troops at an alarming rate. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, over 35,300 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded at the beginning of April. This marks a new record, following the Kremlin’s loss of 35,000 troops in December 2025. This averages at 1,140 soldiers killed and wounded every day across all sections of the front.

Real losses are thought to be even higher, as not every artillery strike or attack on troop concentrations can be precisely identified, while casualties in small-arms engagements cannot always be fully verified. Over the course of the four-year war, Russia’s military has lost more than 1.2 million troops.

At this rate, Russia is losing troops faster than it can replace them, hence the drive to recruit mercenaries from Africa to in a bid to replenish its battlefield losses.

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022, Putin insisted that the invasion should be presented as a controlled operation that could be carried out by professional forces alone, without the need for conscript soldiers and reservist call-ups. However, just three days later, as Russia’s advance on Kyiv stalled, Putin publicly endorsed the idea of bringing in foreign volunteers. At a Russian Security Council meeting on March 11, 2022, he backed the recruitment of fighters from the Middle East, especially Syria, to join the war.

Under Russian law, mercenary activity is officially illegal. However, to circumvent that, Moscow has avoided the term “mercenary” and instead used softer labels such as “volunteers,” a category applied broadly to irregular fighters, including foreign recruits.