Athlete who signed ‘death sentence’ contract is one of hundreds of Africans duped by work permit con
Evans Kibet had hoped his fateful trip to Russia might help his athletics career. Instead, the only exercise the Kenyan now gets is in a yard with other prisoners of war.
The aspiring long-distance runner was captured by Ukrainian forces earlier this year as he wandered in no man’s land near Kharkiv.
Mr Kibet, 36, said he was duped into making the trip from Kenya, then forced into joining the Russian military to feed its insatiable appetite for manpower.
He was lucky to avoid dying in one of the Russians’ notorious “meat-grinder assaults” that have seen hundreds killed each day.
He told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle: “You go 10 metres and you see a dead body. You die there and nobody cares about you. You die like a dog.”
Mr Kibet says Russians told him: ‘Either you go to fight or we’ll kill you’
Kenya’s ministry of foreign affairs this week said more than 200 others from the country were fighting for Russia in Ukraine and recruiting agencies were still luring more into making the trip.
Andrii Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said Africans were signing contracts that were “equivalent to a death sentence” and urged their governments to warn them about the dangers.
Ukraine estimates that more than 1,400 citizens from African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces. In some case, they knew what they were signing up for, but Ukrainian official said others were misled with false offers of lucrative jobs, academic courses or citizenship.
Most of Vladimir Putin’s troops are poor Russians, but the terrible casualty rates caused by the relentless offensive have led to recruiters seeking manpower in developing countries.
Mr Kibet, a father to a 16-year-old daughter who he says he “misses greatly”, had tried to eke out a living as a professional runner but struggled to make money.
He said earlier this year he was approached by an agent offering a trip to St Petersburg, where he would talk about athletics training and take part in an exhibition race. Mr Kibet was excited, and told his family he would be gone for only two weeks.
Before the race, he said, he was offered a work permit and given Russian paperwork to sign. As soon as he and three other athletes signed up, their passports were taken and they were put in a car and driven to a camp for a week of military training.
He said: “We signed this contract without reading it, without knowing what it was. We got ourselves in a situation where there was no return. I was told: ‘Either you go to fight or we’ll kill you.’”
Mr Kibet was sent to the war zone, but fled his unit before his first offensive and wandered through the battlefield until he was arrested by Ukrainian troops.
His case came to light when the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade released a video in which he tearfully told his story. The unit said he had “fought on the side of the enemy, so whether to believe the words and tears is up to your discretion”.
Earlier this year, The Telegraph reported how Russian was using fake shampoo factory jobs to lure men from Cameroon to Moscow, then forcing them to fight on Ukraine’s eastern front.
One tally of Cameroonian social media obituaries suggested the country had already seen more than 60 men killed in the war by the middle of this year.
Russian recruitment has also come under scrutiny in South African, after it was disclosed that the government was trying to retrieve nationals trapped in Ukraine.
News24 reported earlier this week that the men were told they would be sent to Russia for bodyguard training then would return to work in the MK political party’s protection unit.
The men flew to Dubai on July 8, then on to Russia, where their passports were taken away and they were sent to a military training camp. After three weeks they were sent to the front line.
Pretoria said last week that it had received “distress calls” from 17 men aged 20 to 39 who said they were trapped in the Donbas region. Under South African law it is illegal to join foreign armies unless authorised by the government.
South Africa, which is a member of the BRICS group alongside Russia, China and others, did not say which side they were fighting for, but said they had been “lured to join mercenary forces ... under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts”.
Olexander Scherba, Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa, said: “Ever since this news broke, I received emails from family members of these young people who were lured to the front line. And they were desperate. Don’t do that to your mothers and fathers and sisters.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/14/african-citizens-tricked-into-russia-army/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_youtube_youtube-community
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