The Russia–Ukraine war, which escalated into a full-scale conflict in February 2022, did not emerge in a vacuum. Its origins lie in the geopolitical tension that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s struggle to reposition itself between Russian influence and Western integration and the unresolved tensions that solidified around the 2014 annexation of Crimea (Götz & Ekman, 2024; Manboah-Rockson, 2024).The conflict that initially appeared to be a regional dispute over territory and political identity has since transformed into a globalised war with far-reaching implications (Tian, 2024). As military, financial, and diplomatic support from dozens of countries poured into the battlefield, the war has expanded its reach beyond Eastern Europe, drawing in civilians, workers, and vulnerable migrants from distant parts of the world (Buriachenko et al., 2025; Jain et al., 2022). One of the most troubling but insufficiently examined dimensions of this global entanglement is the use and recruitment of foreign fighters. While the dominant international discourse tends to highlight Russian recruitment of foreign nationals, particularly Africans and Asians, this narrative is often presented in ways that obscure the broader reality: foreign fighters participate on both sides of the conflict, and the forces driving their recruitment are embedded in a global political economy that extends far beyond the actions of any single state.
Foreign fighters have long played complex roles in international wars. Historically, the motivations varied: ideological solidarity during the Spanish Civil War, religious radicalisation in Afghanistan and Syria, or financial incentives in private military contracting (Aldoughli, 2025; Jung, 2015; Khoirunnisa et al., 2025). In the Russia-Ukraine war, however, a different dynamic is emerging, one shaped by economic desperation, deceptive labor networks and geopolitical narratives that portray certain recruitment patterns as more legitimate or more alarming depending on where they originate. This uneven framing has created the impression that foreign recruitment is a phenomenon driven exclusively or overwhelmingly by Russia, despite the fact that Ukraine also hosts significant numbers of foreign volunteers, investors, mercenary-linked actors, and contracted fighters through the International Legion and other brigades (Buriachenko et al., 2025). Yet these complexities rarely appear in mainstream discussions. Instead, Russia’s recruitment activities dominate headlines, while the presence of foreign fighters supporting Ukraine is treated as peripheral or unproblematic (Ratelle, 2024). This imbalance is not merely a matter of media oversight, it reveals how power, politics, and narrative control interact during wartime.
The September Newsletter of the Centre for Intelligence and Security Analysis (CISA) exposed how global conflict economies exploit vulnerable populations by merging labor deception with disinformation. Using Russia’s Alabuga Start program as a case study, analysts demonstrated how young people, particularly Africans, are lured into exploitative conditions through the promise of seemingly legitimate employment. This analysis aligns with broader revelations from Kenya in November 2025, where the government announced that more than 200 of its citizens are currently fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Recruitment agencies, operating within Kenya and abroad, continue to exploit local unemployment pressures by offering fraudulent job placements that ultimately funnel individuals into military service. Further complicating the picture, Ukraine recently disclosed that over 1,400 Africans from more than thirty countries are currently fighting alongside Russian forces, many after being deceived, trafficked or coerced. Ukrainian officials characterised these contracts as “a death sentence,” urging African governments to intervene and protect their citizens. South Africa has likewise reported that at least seventeen of its nationals have ended up in the conflict zone, believed to have been lured by financial promises and deceptive intermediaries. These cases reveal a disturbing pattern of exploitation rooted not in ideology but in economic vulnerability.
However, focusing solely on these cases risks producing a misleading conclusion: the idea that foreign fighters are exclusively a Russian phenomenon. That is not accurate. Ukraine’s International Legion has recruited volunteers from around the world, including Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Some African nationals have joined Ukraine through diplomatic channels, personal networks, or direct applications. Their stories rarely make international headlines. The result is a discourse in which African or Asian participation on the Ukrainian side is obscured, minimised, or treated as insignificant, while participation on the Russian side is amplified. The issue is not that Russia’s recruitment tactics go unrecognised, they deserve scrutiny but that the narrative becomes imbalanced when the global public is led to believe that only one side relies on foreign manpower. This imbalance does not serve truth, policy analysis or public understanding.
The experiences surfacing from India further demonstrate that the dynamics of recruitment and exploitation stretch across continents. Families in New Delhi have demanded the return of their relatives who travelled to Russia with the promise of legitimate employment, only to be coerced into military contracts written in a language they could not read. Some travelled on student visas, others on work permits, yet many were eventually pushed into combat with minimal training. These stories mirror the realities faced by Africans, revealing that the exploitation of labor for wartime purposes is not geographically isolated but occurs wherever socioeconomic vulnerability intersects with opaque recruitment networks. And yet, even here, the global narrative tends to frame the problem as entirely “Russian,” leaving unexamined the fact that Indians and other Asians have also volunteered or been contracted into the Ukrainian side though often through quieter or less-publicised pathways.
The selective visibility of foreign fighters in the Russia–Ukraine war is not accidental. It reflects geopolitical alignments, media framing and the moral expectations that underpin global politics. Western governments and media platforms often portray Ukraine as a liberal democracy defending itself against aggression. In such a framing, foreign fighters supporting Ukraine are cast as sympathetic volunteers, while those fighting for Russia are depicted as exploited victims or dangerous mercenaries. Regardless of one’s political position, this narrative asymmetry poses analytical problems: it obscures the socio-economic drivers of foreign fighter participation, it weakens efforts to regulate labor recruitment pathways and it prevents African and Asian governments from gaining a full understanding of where, how, and why their citizens end up in conflict zones.
Beyond narrative framing, the presence of foreign fighters has profound implications for national security across the Global South. Nations whose citizens join the war, whether willingly or through deception may face reintegration challenges, unresolved trauma, or security vulnerabilities when these individuals return. Families who lose their breadwinners to this conflict experience deep economic and psychological strain. The diplomatic relationship between developing countries and Russia or Ukraine may also be strained by incidents of exploitation or misinformation.
In conclusion, the central issue is not which side recruits foreign fighters or which side is morally justified. The core concern is that global discourse selectively highlights foreign fighter recruitment in ways that obscure the full picture, distort public understanding and prevent meaningful policy responses. A balanced and honest reflection requires acknowledging that foreign fighters exist on both sides of the Russia–Ukraine war, even if the scale, method, or motivation differs. Only with such clarity can governments, analysts, and civil society organisations develop effective strategies to protect vulnerable populations, regulate labor mobility, and confront the global political economy that enables exploitation during wartime. The government of Ghana must protect its citizens against these exploitation in both Ukraine and Russia through destination monitoring, working with airlines to flag recruitment transit routes, public awareness programmes, reinforcing laws on mercenary activities, diplomatic engagements among others. In addition, returnees could also become problematic for the country and some rehabilitation measures and national security preparedness must be put in place to properly integrate them back into their communities.
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