KAMPALA — Twenty-seven Ugandans who were enlisted to fight for Russia's army in Ukraine have been killed or are presumed dead, a letter from Uganda's embassy in Moscow to its foreign ministry showed, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Source: Reuters via Sowetan
The letter, seen by Reuters, gave the names of 11 Ugandans confirmed dead and 16 whose bodies could not be located anywhere, including among prisoners of war. Uganda's embassy said it had received the information from Russia's foreign ministry through a 'note verbale', a formal diplomatic communication. An official at Uganda's foreign ministry confirmed the authenticity of the letter. Russia's embassy in Kampala did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: Reuters
Reports of African men being lured to Russia with promises of jobs and ending up on Ukraine's front lines have become frequent, triggering anger in countries such as Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, Reuters reported. Ukraine said last year that more than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries were fighting alongside Russian forces on its territory, with some recruited through deception — a claim attributed to Ukraine, which is a party to the war. Russian authorities have denied illegally recruiting African citizens to fight in Ukraine.
Investigative reporting on the wider pattern has documented a much larger toll. Researchers with INPACT and All Eyes on Wagner documented 1,417 recruits from 35 African countries, including 316 combat deaths, and warned their database was incomplete, according to a summary of the research. Ghana's foreign minister said in February that officials had been informed of an estimated 55 Ghanaian deaths among 272 citizens believed recruited since 2022, and South Africa has said at least two of its citizens died after allegedly being deceived into travelling to Russia. Those national figures cover different periods and should not be added together.
Source: FINCHANNEL (investigative summary)
Recruitment has also become a criminal-justice issue in the region: in February a Kenyan court charged a recruitment-company director with trafficking 25 people for exploitation through deception; prosecutors said 22 were intercepted before departure and three others returned injured after reaching the front, and the director pleaded not guilty, according to the same reporting.
Uganda's foreign ministry has not yet made a public statement beyond confirming the letter's authenticity, and Russia's embassy in Kampala had not responded when Reuters published. The letter does not say when or where each man died, and no independent verification of individual cases has been published.