Predatory recruitment is sending Indians to their deaths on the Russia-Ukraine front
At least 26 men have died in perhaps the first known instance of recruiters making false promises to enlist Indians to fight another country’s war.
DJ Ravindran
Dec 30, 2025 · 09:00 am
Ever since Hemil Mangukiya was killed on the Russia-Ukraine border on February 21, 2024, the media has reported sporadically on Indians recruited to fight Russia’s war in Ukraine. Mangukiya, a 23-year-old from Surat, died in a Ukrainian air strike in the Donetsk region.
Since then, at least 26 other Indians have died on the frontlines of the conflict, Minister of State Kirti Vardhan Singh said in the Rajya Sabha on December 18 in response to a question. He added that at least 202 Indians had been fighting the war for Russia. Seven of them are missing,
These Indians could be categorised as mercenaries – third-party fighters paid to fight in a conflict – if it is established that they had joined the Russian army for pecuniary reasons and were recruited through predatory means.
News reports say the recruiters gave the Indians false information that they would join as “helpers” in the Russian army or “security workers”. Instead, the Russian military deployed them to fight on the frontlines. Such recruits are usually poorly trained, resulting in high casualty rates.
Unless the Indian government takes robust action now, poor and marginalised Indians will remain victims of predatory agents and private military security companies that thrive on conflicts in the world.
It is a problem I have been studying intensely since 2020, when I joined the United Nations’ working group on the use of mercenaries “as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination”.
According to the United Nations, a mercenary is a fighter who is not a member of the armed forces of a state party to a conflict and fights primarily for financial gain. Mercenaries are usually recruited from among retired military personnel, drawing on their combat training and expertise.
But in recent years, more systematic forms of recruitment have emerged, especially online. News reports say that Russia as well as Ukraine have been recruiting foreign fighters as the armed forces of both countries are facing a manpower shortage.
In 2023, we issued a report noting that predatory recruitment of mercenaries takes advantage of the socioeconomic status or other vulnerabilities of the individuals targeted. In some instances, it may involve coercion or fraud.
Poverty, limited job opportunities and discrimination based on religion or ethnicity often provide the conditions for individuals falling prey to predatory recruitment. Increasingly, recruiters, including states, target refugees as potential mercenaries on the promise of money and or even citizenship.
In predatory recruitment, recruiters do not give clear information to potential recruits about the type of job or activities they will be engaged in their destination country. Once the recruits arrive, local forces exploit their vulnerability to enlist them in hostilities.
In some instances, upon arrival in the destination country, recruits are paid considerably less than the promised amount. They also do not receive compensation promised to them or their family in the event of death or injury.
History of mercenaries
Mercenarism has a long history. In the post-colonial period, particularly in Africa, former colonial powers extensively used mercenaries to reassert control over territories with natural resources. Many newly independent countries framed mercenarism as a threat to the people’s right to self-determination.
The growth of private military and security companies has helped sustain mercenarism. In the post-Cold War period after the collapse of the Soviet Union military and security skills have become a commodity and the demand for them has increased in the private sector.
Globally, particularly in the West, specialised private military and security companies have emerged, offering services to governments and corporations, including the recruitment of mercenaries for combat roles.
In 1987, the Human Rights Commission (now the Council), appointed a rapporteur to study mercenarism. This process resulted in the United Nations’ International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, which came into force in 2001, which criminalises mercenarism.
It imposes penalties on those who recruit, use, finance, or train mercenaries. The convention covers both internal and international armed conflicts. Seventeen countries are signatory to the convention but India is not among them.
At the same time, the Indian government’s position is that Indians participating in the conflict of a foreign country amounts to terrorism.
Promised jobs, education
According to Indian news reports, recruits sent to Russia are primarily from low-income families. They have been lured by the promise of money and jobs – many said that they were going to become helpers to the Russian Army, not fighters.
Recruiters made false promises and only struck up verbal agreements with the recruits. One Indian recruit told the BBC that he did not understand the contract he had been handed since it was in Russian, but signed it in the hope of getting a job. He mentioned that the process was swift, with just a few photos and signatures.
Several Indian recruits have said that they paid recruiters to get jobs in Russia.
Once they reached Russia, they realised they had only one option: to join the Russian army. Others said that they had spent a considerable amount of money to reach Russia in the hope of getting a job or studying there, and that they could not think of returning to India.
In November and again in December, the families of Indians recruited into the Russian army protested at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar seeking the Central government’s help in bringing their relatives back. The protestors were from 10 Indian states, indicating that the recruiters have national reach. Some reports mentioned agents based in Russia and Dubai, suggesting the involvement of an international network.
India has had several instances of unscrupulous agencies and agents preying on vulnerable men and women by sending them to non-existent jobs or colleges abroad. It is a lucrative business.
But these are the first known instances when agents have resorted to large-scale recruitment under false promises to enlist Indians to fight in a war in another country.
In March 2024, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed a first information report against 19 suspects for human trafficking in connection with sending Indians to Russia. Four suspects were arrested soon after in May.
It is still unclear if the suspects had any arrangements with official entities in Russia to recruit. Similarly, it is not clear whether Indian agents and agencies in Dubai and Russia are part of an organised trafficking network.
The BBC, in its report on Indians lured to Russia, identified one as a former Indian soldier. It is not known if other Indian soldiers have gone to the front too,
In September, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, urged Indians to “stay away from any offers to join the Russian Army, as this is a course fraught with danger”. He only warned about the physical danger, but not about the potential of Ukraine considering them as mercenaries. This means they could not be classified as combatants protected by the Geneva convention status. Instead, they could be prosecuted as mercenaries, had the Indian government signed the UN convention and if it is established that Indians had joined for financial reasons. Ukraine is a signatory to the UN convention on mercenaries.
Under the International Convention on Mercenaries, it is an offence to recruit, use, finance or train mercenaries.
The Indian government should enact a specific law prohibiting Indian nationals from taking part in foreign wars as mercenaries or in any other capacity. The law should include a prohibition of recruitment, including the predatory recruitment of Indian nationals as mercenaries. Finally, India should consider acceding to the international convention against mercenarism.
DJ Ravindran was the Director of Human Rights in Peace Keeping Operations in Libya, Sudan and Timor Leste ( East Timor) and has worked in post-conflict situations including Cambodia and Uganda. He is presently a member of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. Views expressed are made in personal capacity.
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