For Money or for Justice? BBC Exposes the 'Shadow Army' on the Russia-Ukraine Battlefield: Over 3,500 Foreign Fighters Die Abroad

A BBC investigation has found that since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, at least 3,589 foreign citizens from over 40 countries have died while fighting for Russian forces.

They include prisoners recruited from Russian prisons, migrants who claim they were coerced or deceived, volunteers attracted by high salaries, and North Korean regular troops dispatched under an agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.

BBC Russian and the independent media outlet Mediazona compiled a verified list of Russian military personnel killed in action using open-source materials such as official announcements, social media posts, and photos of graves and war memorials.

One of those on the list is Edson Kamwesigye, a 45-year-old from Uganda. His family said he believed he was going to Russia to work as a security guard.

His wife, Caroline Mukuza, told reporters he had previously worked as a security contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s but had never actually engaged in combat.

After overseas security work dwindled, he returned to Uganda, earning a meager living driving a taxi and farming to support his wife and two children.

In December 2025, he told his family he had found another security job, this time in Russia. However, on January 16 this year, when he called his wife, the news was different.

“He asked me to pray for him because he was undergoing military training and would soon be sent to the front line,” she told the German media outlet Taz.

BBC Russian verified that a week later, Kamwesigye was killed near Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine.

His wife is still trying to repatriate his body. Local media reported that Ugandan authorities have refused to arrange the transport. Ugandan media say that by June 2026, at least two other Ugandans fighting for Russia had also died.

Kamwesigye is one of 1,285 foreign fighters whose deaths have been verified by BBC Russian. They include citizens from Cuba, the United States, China, Vietnam, Poland, India, Nepal, and Serbia.

Additionally, BBC Korean, using satellite imagery and official photos of a military memorial facility in Pyongyang, identified another 2,304 North Korean soldiers. They were killed fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region during Kyiv’s cross-border offensive in August 2024.

The total number of foreigners who have fought for Russian forces—including survivors—is believed to be several times this figure.

In July, a senior NATO official told BBC Russian at a summit in Ankara that NATO believes approximately 24,000 foreign mercenaries from 44 countries are fighting in the Russian military. He said most are from African nations.

“There could be hundreds of Africans who signed contracts. Some volunteered, others were coerced,” he said.

Our list does not include residents of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia who fought for Russian forces. We are counting them separately, so this summary does not reflect their casualties.

However, the list does include 25 Ukrainian citizens from other regions of Ukraine who joined Russian forces and were killed on the front lines. Most were recruited from exile prisons while serving sentences.

Recruitment from Prisons and Abroad

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but the war did not go as planned. The Kremlin quickly realized it was facing a manpower shortage.

By mid-2022, prisoners, including foreigners, were allowed to earn early release in exchange for combat service. Initially managed by the Wagner mercenary group, the program was later taken over by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The program primarily affected citizens of former Soviet states, especially those from Central Asia. For example, over half of the Uzbek and Tajik citizens killed in the war were sent to the front from Russian prisons.

In 2024, Russian authorities significantly increased enlistment payments.

Amounts vary by region, but new recruits signing up in Moscow are promised a one-time enlistment bonus of about $30,000 (203,000 RMB; 969,000 TWD), with a monthly salary of about $3,500. Including combat bonuses, new recruits from Moscow could earn over $72,300 in their first year.

The median monthly income in Russia is about $760 (5,100 RMB; 24,600 TWD).

Chinese nationals verified by BBC as killed fighting for Russia:

Zhao Rui — Killed in 2023, aged 38, from Chongqing, volunteer

Zhang Yuqiao — Killed on April 4, 2025, aged 25, from Inner Mongolia, volunteer

Wang Zhi Jiang — Killed on May 4, 2023, aged 52, origin unknown, Russian prisoner

Yang Hongbo — Killed on December 21, 2022, aged 42, origin unknown, Russian prisoner

Liu Baochang — Killed on January 8, 2023, aged 41, origin unknown, Russian prisoner

Around the same time, Russia began actively recruiting residents from more distant countries such as Cuba, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Yemen. Some knew they were joining the military; others said they believed they were coming to Russia for study or construction and security work, only to be sent to military training and then to the front lines.

Since mid-2025, human rights organizations and lawyers say labor migrants from former Soviet states living in Russia have again come under pressure. Some reportedly were offered help with deportation orders, entry bans, or citizenship applications in exchange for signing military contracts; others said they were threatened.

According to Reuters and the International Human Rights League, Russia has also attempted to recruit people from poorer African nations.

North Korea’s case is different: its soldiers are not recruited individually but are officially dispatched by the government under a defense agreement with Russia.

Although Russia’s recruitment efforts span multiple regions, foreigners still make up only a small fraction of Russia’s overall combat deaths. Even including North Korean soldiers, they account for less than 2% of the 233,033 deaths verified by BBC.

They cannot replace Russia’s primary source of manpower—Russian citizens. However, as casualties continue to mount and fewer Russians are willing to enlist, Moscow is likely to continue recruiting from abroad.

The Russian government has not updated military death figures since September 2022 and generally does not respond to BBC Russian’s investigations.

Ukraine’s ‘Foreign Legion’

Ukraine also recruits foreign citizens, using a nationwide system established after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky established the International Legion of Ukraine within days of the war’s outbreak and called on overseas volunteers to join. Foreigners currently serve in this legion and other Ukrainian military units. Under martial law, they must serve continuously for six months before they can voluntarily leave.

In June this year, Zelensky announced Ukraine would increase military pay and seek to recruit more combat personnel overseas. After four years of fighting, the Ukrainian military is facing a manpower shortage.

Ukraine does not publish comprehensive statistics on foreign citizen fatalities. In August 2025, an official coordinating foreign volunteer service told Ukrainian media Hromadske that over 8,000 foreign volunteers had already joined the army alone.

He estimated the number across all branches of the Ukrainian armed forces could reach at least 16,000 and said citizens from 72 countries are currently serving in the Ukrainian military.

The composition of foreign personnel has changed. Early volunteers included many from Western and former Soviet countries, some with military experience.

Ukraine later established Spanish-language recruitment and command structures, leading hundreds of Colombian veterans to join. Some say they came to defend Ukraine; for others, money is a key motivator: frontline pay can be many times higher than what Colombian soldiers earn.

Foreigners serving in Ukraine receive the same pay as Ukrainian soldiers: approximately $2,690 for a full month of combat; an additional $1,570 is paid for every cumulative 30 days spent on the front line.

However, on both sides, foreign units play only a small supplementary role; the vast majority of personnel remain Russians and Ukrainians, respectively.