South Africa is investigating how 17 of its citizens ended up fighting in the war-torn Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The office of President Cyril Ramaphosa said it had received distress calls from the men, aged 20 to 39, who had been lured by promises of lucrative employment contracts and were now seeking assistance to return home.
It is unclear which side the men were fighting for, but their presence in Russian-occupied Donbas and the reference to financial deception strongly suggests they were enlisted by Russia. Both sides in the conflict have used foreign fighters, but Russia has done so on a far larger scale, often relying on coercion and false promises of non-military jobs advertised on social media.
In September, Ukraine released a video of a captured Kenyan fighter who said he had been tricked into fighting for Russia. Last month, Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation said Russia was running mercenary recruitment campaigns in south-east Asia, Africa and Latin America. Russia is also supported by thousands of North Korean soldiers, the only state-backed foreign forces in the war.
Ukraine has encouraged foreign volunteers to enlist in its armed forces, including through units like the International Legion, and has recently recruited about 2,000 Colombian contract soldiers. Military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady said the role of foreign fighters had increased over the last two years, but added that even an influx would not solve Ukraine's manpower shortage.
Jethro Norman, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said the numbers of foreign fighters were marginal on both sides, but they carried significant symbolic weight in propaganda and recruitment narratives. Chinese social media is awash with recruitment videos for the Russian army, while Beijing says it does not support citizens joining the conflict.
