HOW HUMAN TRAFFICKERS LURED 79 UGANDANS TO RUSSIA’S FRONTLINES

Some of the Africans recruited to fight in Russia-Ukraine war

DAILY MONITOR

Despair and agony have gripped dozens of Ugandan families following revelations that at least 79 citizens were lured into the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, with several reported dead and others missing on the frontlines.
Seven months after formally petitioning the government and the Russian Embassy in Kampala for assistance, distraught relatives say they have been met with bureaucratic silence, leaving them in a agonizing state of limbo.

The crisis highlights a sophisticated, illicit human trafficking web spanning the Global South, where vulnerable young Africans are deceptively recruited under the guise of lucrative labor export, only to be deployed as frontline combatants or forced factory laborers in Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine.

For the families left behind, the psychological toll is devastating. Many of those trapped on the frontlines were primary breadwinners, leaving households struggling to survive.
“We have moved from office to office, but no help has come through,” Innocent Kato, the co-coordinator of an association representing the missing relatives, told Daily Monitor. “We do not know what befell our people. We do not know whether they are dead or alive. We wrote to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, but we have not received any positive response.”

In the absence of official updates from either Kampala or Moscow, families have been forced to rely on gruesome social media notifications to learn the fate of their loved ones.
“Relatives of the people killed received the news through Facebook and WhatsApp. We were sent images of severed bodies of their loved ones, leaving us traumatised and struggling, but no one is helping,” Kato added.
Officials from Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that approximately 79 Ugandans are known to have been funneled into the conflict zone via Russia. While acknowledging that an unspecified number have been killed, government officials admitted they are currently unable to repatriate the remains of citizens who died in active combat zones.

The brewing scandal lands directly on the desk of incoming Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde. Although yet to be formally sworn into office, the retired military general has vowed to dismantle human trafficking networks disguised as legitimate external labor companies.

Speaking to journalists minutes after being vetted by Parliament’s Appointments Committee, Lt Gen Tumukunde promised a radical overhaul of the country’s labor export framework.
“We want to check the competence and capability of the person, especially where they are going, and understand whether they are suited for the tasks of the new place,” Tumukunde said, pledging rigorous background checks on foreign employers and the recruitment agencies handling Ugandan citizens.
Uganda is not alone in this crisis. More than 20 countries across the Global South have reported citizens missing or killed in Russia. Nations such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have all featured prominently on the list of trafficking sources.

Unlike Kampala’s sluggish response, some African nations are taking direct legal action. On Monday, Zimbabwean authorities arrested Leonid Koftov, a Russian national, at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in Harare. Koftov was intercepted while attempting to board a flight with a local Zimbabwean man he had allegedly recruited for the war.
According to Zimbabwean police, Koftov was charged under the country’s Trafficking in Persons and Labour Acts. The court heard that Koftov had processed a Russian E-visa, air tickets, and hotel bookings for the recruit. The arrest came shortly after Harare confirmed that 18 Zimbabwean nationals had already been killed on the Ukrainian frontlines.

International pressure is mounting on the syndicates orchestrating the recruitment. Last month, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) slapped heavy sanctions on over a dozen individuals and entities accused of luring African men and women to Russia.
An intelligence report released alongside the sanctions revealed a gender-segregated exploitation pipeline: while young men are sent directly to the combat zones in Ukraine, young African women are trafficked to work under coercive conditions in the Shahed drone manufacturing factories located in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, western Russia.

Among those sanctioned on May 5, 2026, was Michel Ateba, a Cameroonian-French national, and his company, Enangue Holding. Ateba is accused of openly promoting the “Alabuga Start” program, a scheme targeting vulnerable migrants. In 2025, Ateba reportedly boasted to investigative journalists that his company had paid passport fees for at least 40 recruits from impoverished backgrounds.

The UK also sanctioned senior human resource officials driving the Alabuga Start program, including Elmir Saifullin, Savsan Yusupova, Anastasia Barysheva, and Konstantin Trifonov, all of whom have reportedly traveled to Africa to recruit workers.
Other operatives sanctioned for trafficking citizens from Cuba, Iraq, Bangladesh, India, Morocco, Yemen, Ivory Coast, and Syria include Polina Azarnykh, Abid Abid, and Elena Smirnova.
Civil society organizations in Uganda are urging the government to move beyond passive diplomacy and actively hunt down local collaborators aiding these international syndicates.
Kenneth Oloka, the Chief Executive Officer of Kyeyo Initiative Uganda—an organization advocating for the rights of Ugandan migrant workers—welcomed the international sanctions but stated they are insufficient on their own.

“Sanctions help, but they are not enough,” Oloka told this publication.”Governments should go ahead and arrest these people’s local collaborators in various countries. These traffickers do not work in isolation; they have local networks right here in Kampala facilitating the clearance and departure of our youth.”
With the economic hardships at home driving thousands of youth to seek employment abroad, experts warn that without immediate state intervention and the prosecution of local agents, more Ugandans risk being shipped off to foreign battlefields.