Russia is recruiting Africans to fight in the war under the guise of a movie shoot, according to Politico
Russia has begun using a new scheme to recruit citizens of African countries to fight in the war against Ukraine, offering potential recruits the chance to participate in a “movie shoot.”
According to the nonprofit organization Code for Africa, announcements about a “global casting call” for a new film project were circulating on social media. At least 89 websites and dozens of accounts on messaging apps and social media were used to run the campaign, with young men facing employment difficulties as the primary target audience. After arriving in Russia and undergoing several weeks of training, those recruited were sent to the front lines.
In this way, citizens of India, Sri Lanka, Cuba, Kenya, Nepal, Botswana, and South Africa have already been sent to the front lines, prompting the authorities of some countries to demand that Russia cease such practices. According to Will Brown, a senior research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Moscow has created a large-scale propaganda network to recruit disillusioned people. The recruited foreigners reported racist insults, the confiscation of their money, and being forced to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, the contents of which they did not understand.
Source: Politico.
As of May 2026, at least 2,965 citizens from 36 countries on the African continent had fought or were still fighting against Ukraine as part of the Russian occupation army.
Earlier, the Ukrainian government project “I Want to Live,” run by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, published a list of 1,059 students whom the Russian Ministry of Defense had recruited to fight against Ukraine.
In the second quarter of 2026, Russia signed approximately 93,000 new contracts for military service.
