From Uganda to the United States: Foreigners fighting and dying in the ranks of the Russian army

Image caption, Ugandan citizen Edson Kamuhanda is one of the foreigners who was killed while fighting in Russian ranks

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Author, Olga Ivshina Role, BBC News Russia

Published 2 hours ago

Reading time: 6 minutes

At least 3,589 foreign nationals belonging to more than 40 countries have been killed while fighting alongside Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a BBC investigation.

These include prisoners recruited inside Russian prisons, migrants who say they were coerced or tricked into joining the fight, volunteers attracted by high salaries, as well as regular North Korean soldiers sent under an agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.

The BBC Russian service, in cooperation with the independent news website Mediazona, compiled a list of verified Russian casualties based on open sources, including official data, social media posts, and photographs of graves and war memorials.

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Among the names on our list is Edson Kamuhanda from Uganda, whom his family says believed he was heading to Russia to work as a security guard.

The 45-year-old had worked as a security guard in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s, but had never previously participated in actual combat, according to his wife, Caroline Mukuza, speaking to journalists.

After employment opportunities in security declined abroad, he returned to Uganda, where he worked as a taxi driver and tried to make a living from farming. However, his income was barely enough to support his wife and two children.

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In December 2025, he told his family that he had found a new security job, this time in Russia. But on January 16, 2026, he called his wife to tell her something different.

She told the German newspaper Taz: 'He asked me to pray for him because he was receiving military training and would soon be sent to the front lines.'

A week later, Kamuhanda was killed near Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine, as verified by the BBC Russian service.

His wife is still trying to bring his body back to his country. Local media reported that Ugandan authorities refused to make the necessary arrangements for his repatriation. Ugandan media also reported that at least two other Ugandans who fought alongside Russia were killed by June 2026.

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Image caption, A large number of citizens from former Soviet Union countries, particularly Central Asia, were killed while fighting alongside Russia

Kamuhanda was one of 1,285 foreign fighters in the Russian army whose deaths have been verified by the BBC Russian service. These include citizens from Cuba, the United States, China, Vietnam, Poland, India, Nepal, and Serbia, along with many other nationalities.

The BBC Korean service also identified an additional 2,304 North Korean soldiers based on satellite imagery and official photos of a military memorial in Pyongyang. They were killed while fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region after Kyiv launched an incursion there in August 2024.

The total number of foreigners who fought alongside Russia, including those who survived, is believed to be several times higher than this figure.

NATO estimates that about 24,000 foreign mercenaries from 44 countries are fighting in the ranks of Russian forces, according to a senior NATO official who spoke to the BBC Russian service during a summit held in Ankara in July. The official said the majority hail from African countries.

He added: 'It is likely that hundreds of Africans have signed contracts to fight. Some did so voluntarily, while others were coerced.'

Our list does not include residents of the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia who are fighting alongside Russia, as we list them in separate statistics, and therefore their casualties are not reflected in this summary.

However, the list includes 25 Ukrainian citizens from other regions of Ukraine who were killed on the front lines while fighting within Russian formations. Most of them joined the war after being recruited from inside penal colonies.

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Recruitment from prisons and outside Russia

Image caption, The Russian government has not updated its official military death toll since September 2022

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As the large-scale Russian war on Ukraine—which began in February 2022—dragged on, contrary to Moscow's expectations, the Kremlin quickly faced a shortage of fighters.

In mid-2022, prisoners, including foreigners, were offered freedom in exchange for participating in combat. The Wagner private military company initially handled recruitment operations before this task was later transferred to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

This program primarily targeted citizens of former Soviet republics, especially Central Asian countries. For instance, more than half of the Uzbek and Tajik citizens killed in the war had joined the front lines after being recruited from inside Russian prisons.

In 2024, Russian authorities significantly raised financial incentives for joining the army.

These payments vary from region to region, but anyone signing a recruitment contract in Moscow is currently promised an immediate sign-on bonus of about $30,000, in addition to a monthly salary of nearly $3,500. Combat participation bonuses can raise a recruit's total income during their first year to more than $72,300.

By comparison, the average monthly income in Russia is about $760.

Around the same time, Russia began intensifying recruitment in more distant countries, including Cuba, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Yemen. Some of those who joined were aware they would be joining the army, while others said they traveled to Russia hoping to study or work in construction or security before being sent to military training camps and then to the front lines.

Since mid-2025, human rights groups and lawyers have reported renewed pressure on migrant workers from former Soviet countries residing in Russia.

Some were allegedly offered assistance in resolving issues related to deportation orders, entry bans, or citizenship applications in exchange for signing contracts to join the army, while others said they were threatened.