The government of South Africa on Thursday announced an investigation into how 17 of its citizens became mercenaries on the battlefields of Ukraine.
The men are sending “distress signals” pleading for rescue, and their families claim they were tricked into fighting.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the circumstances that led to the recruitment of these young men into these seemingly mercenary activities,” the government statement said.
According to the statement, the 17 men are between 20 and 39 years of age. All of them are “trapped” in the hotly contested Donbas region of Ukraine. Presidential spokesman Vincent Magwengya said the government does not know which side the men are fighting for, but most of the Donbas region is currently under Russian control, and Russia has a history of luring men from developing nations into fighting for its war machine in Ukraine.
In the spring of 2024, the families of at least 20 Indian citizens complained that their loved ones were tricked into fighting for Russia using methods very similar to the situation described by the South African government.
In the case of the Indians, some were recruited for phony jobs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by a shadowy “independent consultant,” but their flight to Dubai was diverted to Russia, where they were pressed into service with the Russian military. Others applied for civilian or military support jobs in Russia, and were surprised to find themselves sent into battle in Ukraine.
The Indian government launched an investigation of the matter in January 2025, much as South Africa is doing now. The number of documented cases grew to 35, and the Indian Foreign Ministry warned the number could become much higher. The Foreign Ministry said at least two of the Indians pressed into military service for Russia had been killed in combat, and others were “grievously injured.”
In July 2025, under intense pressure from his public, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a promise from Russian President Vladimir Putin that all of the Indians fighting in Ukraine would be discharged from military service, and no more Indian citizens would be recruited.
Several other countries have claimed their citizens were recruited under false pretenses to fight for Russia, including Cuba, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Kenya.
The Ukrainian military released a video in September of a captured Kenyan athlete, 36-year-old Evans Kibet, who said he was duped into fighting for the Russian military. Kibet’s family said he was lured with the false promise of competing in a track event in Russia. He told his relatives he only expected to be gone for two weeks.
Russia has also been accused of using deceptive advertising to recruit workers for its drone factories, most of them women from African nations, including South Africa.
In August, the South African government issued a warning to young women about deceptive job recruiting ads from abroad. The warning was prompted by an aggressive recruiting campaign for suspicious jobs in Russia, waged by high-profile social media influencers. Many of the dubious jobs were located in Tatarstan, where Russia has been known to trick young women into working in its drone and munitions factories.
“If something looks too good to be true, get a second opinion,” advised South African head of public diplomacy Clayson Monyela.
The family of a South African man pleading for rescue from Ukraine said on Tuesday he was lured by a job offer that appeared to come from an official in South Africa’s left-wing MK Party. The victim had long been seeking a job in public service, so he leaped at the opportunity.
According to his family, the victim and several other South African men believed they were applying for lucrative positions as trained bodyguards. Instead, they were flung onto the battlefields of Ukraine with minimal training.
The families of the recruits said they filed complaints with the Ramaphosa administration months ago, but were told to keep quiet until recently to avoid disrupting delicate behind-the-scenes negotiations with Russia.
Ramaphosa might have run out of patience with those negotiations and launched a public investigation, or he might have been pressured into it by the MK party and its leader, former president Jacob Zuma. South African media obtained a letter written by Zuma to Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov in September, asking for South African recruits to be pulled back from the frontlines in Ukraine.
“Your excellency, while our resolve to support the Russian Federation remains unshaken, I must humbly and urgently appeal to you directly. Sending these untrained, inexperienced volunteers into active combat is a certain tragedy. It would be a devastating loss to their families, to our party, and the future of Russo-Africa relations,” Zuma wrote in the letter, which has not been officially acknowledged by the MK Party.
Zuma may, in turn, have been pressured to lodge his plea with Belousov because MK actively helped Russia to recruit conscripts from South Africa. Sources within the party have told reporters that MK received “financial incentives” from Russia to provide recruits — an arrangement hinted at by Zuma’s letter, which informed Belousov that MK was struggling to contain the political fallout from the recruiting scheme.
MK spokespersons have denied the party helped Russia recruit South Africans, although it has refused to either confirm or deny the authenticity of Zuma’s letter to Russia. Ramaphosa’s investigation could spell big trouble for MK if a link is definitively established, since fighting for foreign armies is illegal under South African law.
Tebogo Mashilompane, leader of another party called Forum for South Africa (FOSA), said on Tuesday that Ramaphosa’s government should do more than just investigate the situation or lodge protests with Russia.
“The state needs to go and fetch them. They can use military aircraft and follow diplomatic channels to make the necessary arrangements. That would be the quickest and most appropriate way to bring them back safely,” Mashilompane said.
“People are vulnerable. They see adverts online promising jobs in other countries and believe they are genuine. These men were not looking to fight in a war; they were simply looking for work,” he emphasized.
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