He lies face down in the sludge of a Ukrainian field. High above, the sky buzzes with the falsetto whine of drones. Men scream as death falls from the air. Others are already silent, their bodies twisted into unnatural shapes. The horizon blazes.
Instinct takes over. Inches away lies the body of another African fighter already dead, his mouth frozen in a voiceless scream.
Kevin – not his real name – drags the corpse across his own body. It is heavy, limp and slick with blood. The smell of hot steel and smoke fills his nostrils.
He pulls the corpse further across his own, down against his face and chest and hides beneath the dead weight.
A bomb lands directly on the body shielding him. It absorbs almost all the explosion apart from some shrapnel, which rips through Kevin’s right hand, tearing flesh, embedding metal.
Pain courses through his body, but he remains still. Movement, he knows, means instant death.
For three hours he doesn’t stir, pinned beneath another man’s body. When silence finally comes, he knows it’s the silence of a killing field.
By nightfall the field reeks of blood and charred flesh. For two full days he lies among the corpses, his stomach clawing with hunger, his lips cracked with thirst.
*Kevin was scammed into fighting on the frontline for Russia in the war against Ukraine: Captured in Eastern Ukraine
From time to time, he hears more waves of trafficked ‘soldiers’ driven into the same open ground.
He hears the orders barked in Russian, the cries of men and then the sudden chaos of fire.
‘Some would run right past me,’ he remembers, ‘and then die almost immediately in front of me.’
Out of the 27 men in his unit, 25 were killed that day.
Just three months earlier Kevin was at home, running a small shop in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
It was barely large enough to hold a counter, a fridge and some shelves stacked with soft drinks, soap and cigarettes – but it gave him a living. And then the business collapsed. Kevin needed money, fast.
He contacted one of the many agencies in Kenya that advertise menial jobs, cleaning and so forth, in places like the Gulf, but they didn’t have anything.
During his job search he came across Festus Omwamba, an agent for jobs in Russia.
*Kevin’s injury from a drone strike. He used a corpse to shield himself but shrapnel managed to rip through Kevin’s right hand
‘He told me the Russian government was recruiting for jobs in packaging companies as well as cleaners and shopkeepers.
‘All expenses would be covered, and I’d only start having to pay Festus his fee once I got there and began earning,’ Kevin told me as we spoke over Whats-App recently.
I’d found him through contacts in Kenya and soon discovered that he was a man with an extraordinary story. He told me he had been duped into flying to Russia under false pretences, then forced to fight on the front in eastern Ukraine before, almost a lone survivor, he made an incredible escape back home.
As we talked, I asked Kevin what proof he had of all this.
‘Lots,’ he replied. My phone pinged with photos showing Kevin with Russian soldiers and Kevin wearing Russian uniform.
He sent, among other things, pictures of his Russian military ID, his so-called ‘dog tag’ – the chain every soldier hangs around their neck to identify them in case of death – his Russian e-visa, the medical records from his time in Russian hospital and, most shocking of all, photos of his hand shredded by shrapnel.
And if his story – of him being trafficked into Russia to fight and die in Ukraine – seems incredible, it is, alas, all too true and all too common.
According to Kyiv intelligence, the Russian military has ramped up recruitment of soldiers from Africa – particularly from Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda – to bolster frontline operations in Ukraine.
*Kevin with other trafficked African soldiers in the forest near the battle lines with Ukraine
*Kevin’s dog tag – the chain every soldier hangs around their neck to identify them in case of death
But many, like Kevin, have no idea what lies in store.
Investigations show Africans are routinely lured into Russia on promises of well-paid jobs, student placements or hospitality roles, only to be diverted into military service with minimal training. It is a conveyor belt of the very worst kind of deceit – and death.
Earlier this year the Daily Mail reported on Cubans who answered adverts for £1,900 a-month building jobs in Russia, only to be hurled on to Ukraine’s bloody frontlines.
And let’s not forget the 10,000 to 15,000 North Korean troops now fighting for Russia, mostly along the Kursk and Belgorod front.
It is the first time in modern history that North Korean forces have been deployed beyond Asia.
South Korea’s intelligence service believes around 4,700 have been killed or wounded so far.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has become a world war in everything but name.
To convince Kevin to travel to Russia, Festus added him to a WhatsApp group full of other Kenyans supposedly enjoying their new lives in Russia.
On July 14, 2023, Kevin and four other Kenyans arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Just before departure, the recruiter demanded 30,000 shillings (£175) to ‘pass immigration’. Kevin had only 10,000, which he handed over
The messages flowed in: ‘Life is great here. The work is easy. The salary is good,’ and so on.
He didn’t realise it then, but these texts were coming from the men now lying wounded in hospital beds. First they’d been compelled to fight, then they were forced to send lying messages to recruit further hapless victims to the meatgrinder of the Ukrainian frontline.
It worked. On July 14, 2023, Kevin and four other Kenyans arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Just before departure, the recruiter demanded 30,000 shillings (£175) to ‘pass immigration’. Kevin had only 10,000, which he handed over.
They boarded Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, spent the night at the airport then continued to St Petersburg the next morning.
A taciturn man met them on arrival. His first move was to collect their passports and return tickets. Then he said something that Kevin will never forget: ‘Here, you do not talk. I command, you obey.’
They were taken straight to a bank and made to open accounts, given cheap Russian phones and ordered to sign documents written only in Russian.
‘The man was very rude,’ Kevin recalls. ‘And when we signed, we realised that they put a standing order at the bank so that anybody could withdraw all the money in our bank accounts at any given time.’
There was a reason for this, as he would later learn: the men never saw a penny of their wages or bonuses. Their traffickers took everything.
Earlier this year the Daily Mail reported on Cubans who answered adverts for £1,900- a-month building jobs in Russia, only to be hurled on to Ukraine’s bloody frontlines
From the bank they were driven three hours into the countryside. Then their phones were seized and they were cut off from the world. The next day they were marched into a military camp.
Kevin protested – he had been promised work in a shop, he said. The officer sneered. ‘If your agent didn’t tell you, I will. You are soldiers now.’
Contracts were shoved at them which they were forbidden to read or question.
At the camp they met a group of Egyptians. ‘Why did you sign the contract?’ they asked. ‘It’s a death sentence. Signing it is like killing yourself.’
Kevin pauses. ‘And they were speaking the truth,’ he continues. ‘They were not lying.’
Training lasted a mere four days. The 27 men in Kevin’s unit were given some very basic shooting practice and then it was off to the killing fields. They were told only that they were heading to the ‘front’.
First they drove in military vehicles for hours through dark forests and ruined villages. Then it was time for a 50-mile march.
‘It was weird,’ Kevin remembers. ‘As we were walking you could see dead bodies all around: along the road, among the trees. Everywhere. And then you fully understand,’ he continues. ‘This is not a job. This is war.’
They were taken straight to a bank and made to open accounts, given cheap Russian phones and ordered to sign documents written only in Russian
As they approached the front at Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine they had to cross two rivers. The first was navigated without incident.
Beyond them lay a patch of open field, 250 yards wide, leading toward the Ukrainian positions. The men looked at each other, terrified. It was just an open field, flat and utterly exposed.
Their commander pointed at it. ‘Advance.’ Refusal, they knew, meant they would be shot.
They began to charge and almost immediately the drones began their song in reply. Bombs fell like rain. Snipers fired from hidden positions. Men were torn apart mid-stride.
Kevin ran, the ground shaking beneath his feet. He saw one man lifted off the ground by a blast. Another stumbled forward, his arm hanging by a thread of flesh. ‘It was like a slaughterhouse. You just kept moving until you fell.’
That was when Kevin began his two days of playing dead. ‘You’re the only person still alive there in that field,’ he tells me. ‘And nobody cares. If you die, you die. If you go, you go.’
After two days he began to crawl slowly, for just 30 seconds at a time, his breath shallow, terrified of being seen. Inch by inch, he reached the cover of trees.
Finally, exhausted and bleeding, he stumbled into Russian soldiers. He lifted his mangled hand and begged for help. Their answer was cold: ‘Your thumb still works. You can still shoot, so you can fight.’
*Kevin’s Russian e-visa among other documents he showed the Daily Mail. According to Kyiv intelligence, the Russian military has ramped up recruitment of soldiers from Africa – particularly from Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda – to bolster frontline operations in Ukraine
They sent him back, and so for ten days he trudged to another frontline under more brutal commanders. ‘They always sent us in front,’ Kevin said. ‘Africans first. Russians behind. We were their human shields.’
The Russians were clear that they didn’t care about their men’s lives, Kevin remembers. ‘They told us ‘even if you die our country is going to give your family money, so we don’t care about your life’.’
Groups of 20 would be sent forward to fight. Generally, two or three would return. Sometimes none would.
Food was scarce: a crust of bread, a sip of dirty water. At night, the men dug holes to sleep in. But the drones hunted them by their body heat, dropping their bombs straight into the holes. ‘You would wake up and the man in the hole next to you was dead.’ One night a group of Africans refused to fight.
They said they were too poorly trained, too ill-prepared.
The Russian commander pulled out his pistol. ‘He shouted, ‘If our own men refuse, we burn them. Who are you to refuse?’
‘Then he shot one of them in the thigh in front of us. He told us, ‘You go – or you die here’.’ They went. Kevin describes the routine: long marches across blasted land, scavenging for food and water, always amid the endless threat from drones.
Eventually, there was nothing left: no food, no ammunition, no orders. Kevin and another Kenyan, mutilated and missing limbs, were told to get back to Russia.
Finally, exhausted and bleeding, he stumbled into Russian soldiers. He lifted his mangled hand and begged for help. Their answer was cold: ‘Your thumb still works. You can still shoot, so you can fight’
They were given no map or guide. ‘Keep north.’ That was all they were told.
They walked for 15 days, having to scavenge what they could from corpses – stale bread, water bottles, even scraps of cloth to bind wounds.
At last, they reached the Russian lines. The soldiers found them and took them to a hospital in Moscow.
While in hospital Kevin was finally able to check the bank account that had been opened for him on his arrival.
He saw that all his wages and combat bonuses – every payment – had been stolen.
‘We were never meant to live,’ Kevin says. ‘We were meant to die for them – and then they would be paid for our death.’
To make matters worse, he was told that he would receive compensation for his injuries, which he did. It was sent to his account – but he had no way of accessing it.
The military commander at the hospital told him bluntly.
Doctors removed some shrapnel from his hands, bandaged his wounds, and told him he would recover – and be sent back to the front. His redeployment date was scheduled: September 19. Now Kevin was truly desperate
‘We’ve compensated you for your injury, but the money is not yours. It’s for the government.’
Doctors removed some shrapnel from his hands, bandaged his wounds, and told him he would recover – and be sent back to the front. His redeployment date was scheduled: September 19. Now Kevin was truly desperate.
He contacted the Kenyan embassy. ‘They’re good people,’ he told me. ‘They came and tried to negotiate with the soldiers.’
But it was to no avail. ‘He’s our property now,’ the soldiers said. Kevin would have to go back to the war until it was deemed his contract was finished.
But he begged them every day. He told them his daughter was sick and that he needed his money. Eventually the commander got sick of it.
‘The money is not yours,’ he told Kevin. ‘If you think I’m lying I’ll give you a chance to go to the bank and try to access the account.’
The commander refused to give Kevin his passport. Nonetheless, this was what Kevin most needed: a chance.
He walked out of the hospital and hailed a taxi. Kevin climbed in but, instead of asking to be taken to the bank, he showed the driver his phone. On the screen was typed: Kenyan Embassy. ‘I told him, please, take me here.’
*Kevin contacted the Kenyan embassy. ‘They’re good people,’ he told me. ‘They came and tried to negotiate with the soldiers.’ But it was to no avail. ‘He’s our property now,’ the soldiers said. Kevin would have to go back to the war until it was deemed his contract was finished
Kevin’s emergency passport he was issued by the Kenyan Embassy. Kevin says they took him to the airport in Moscow and got him on a flight home
Inside the embassy, officials listened, horrified, as Kevin described what had happened to him. ‘I’m not going back,’ he told them. ‘I don’t care about the money they stole from me, this is about my life.’
And they helped him, he tells me. I have not been able to independently verify this part of the story, but Kevin says they issued him an emergency passport, took him to the airport and got him on a flight home.
Kevin landed in Nairobi and for a brief time he thought the nightmare was over.
It wasn’t. One day the phone rang with a warning from a friend: ‘Gilbert [one of the Kenyan agents who had facilitated his move] is looking for you.’
Somehow word had spread he’d made it home and the agents were determined he keep his mouth shut.
A few days later Gilbert called, asking where he was. Kevin lied and said he wasn’t around, then quickly hung up and blocked the number.
Then came the call from Russia. ‘We still have power in Kenya,’ a Slavic voice said. ‘If we hear you’ve been talking, we will roast you alive.’
Moscow’s trafficking and exploitation of men and women across Africa is yet another Russian war crime in a litany of many.
*Kevin’s now trying to help others avoid falling victim to human trafficking. Occasionally he speaks to Kenyans trapped on the frontlines that the embassy sends his way
And it is one of the many reasons why Putin’s war machine must be resisted by all right-thinking people, wherever they are.
No one in Africa is safe. One investigation documented how about 200 young African women – mostly aged 18 to 22 – ended up in a factory in Tatarstan under the pretext of hospitality and education jobs but found themselves assembling drones to be used in Ukraine.
In Kenya the issue has become so egregious that it was raised in a meeting in Nairobi earlier this month between the country’s foreign affairs principal secretary and the Russian ambassador.
In a discussion that reportedly helped to grow co-operation between the two states, local media reported Kenya had received ‘firm assurances from the Russian government that no Kenyan citizens will be forcibly recruited into Russia’s security forces’.
If it feels perfunctory, it probably is. The Russians still need cannon fodder. They won’t stop.
Across Kenya, sons and daughters will continue to leave their families for ‘Russian jobs’ never to return.
WhatsApp groups once full of cheerful lies will again fall silent. Some recruiters will vanish; many more will continue to operate.
Kevin knows this. He tries to do what he can to help. Occasionally he speaks to Kenyans trapped on the frontlines that the embassy sends his way.
They know he offers them their best chance to escape. After all, he is the Kenyan who came back – not just from Russia, but from death itself.
