Investigators in Zimbabwe have arrested a man who allegedly worked with a Russian accomplice to unlawfully recruit young Zimbabwean nationals “to join the Russian army where they will be forced to fight in the armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukrainian Forces.”
The suspect, Edward Kachingwe, is a 36-year-old resident of Zimbabwe’s capital city of Harare. He was taken into custody on Monday on two counts of “trafficking in persons and operating an employment agency without registration.”
Prosecutors said Kachingwe “connived” with a Russian national known as “Roman” to recruit at least five victims for service in the Russian military. Kachingwe was arrested at a bus terminal in Harare while trying to get one of his recruits aboard a bus to South Africa, where he would catch a plane to Russia.
Police said they recovered electronic airline tickets, Russian visas, and hotel reservations for all five victims from Kachingwe after he was taken into custody.
A similar case from this month saw a Russian national named Leonid Koftev charged with human trafficking for trying to get a Zimbabwean man to Russia.
The Zimbabwean government says at least 18 of its nationals have been killed while fighting for Russia in Ukraine, and at least 63 of them are still involved in the conflict.
Zimbabwean Information Minister Zhemu Soda issued a public warning in March about Russian recruiting networks tricking young men into military service.
“Our citizens are being preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals and networks who operate with complete disregard of human life. Traffickers use sophisticated methods, often leveraging social media platforms as their primary hunting ground,” he said.
Soda said the schemes follow a pattern of promising good pay for safe, civilian jobs in Russia, only to force the victims into “active combat” by confiscating their passports after they arrive:
They receive little to no training and are placed in life-threatening situations. When they are injured, killed or captured, the recruiters vanish, leaving families in Zimbabwe with no information, no support and no one to hold accountable. In many cases, the promised remuneration is never paid.
Other Russian recruiting schemes have been uncovered in Kenya, South Africa, India, and most recently Peru. Ukrainian officials say at least 1,700 Africans have been conscripted into service with the Russian army.
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