Russia has been accused of strapping a landmine to an African mercenary’s chest and ordering him to run through no man’s land as a human bomb to target Ukrainian fortifications.
Widely shared video purporting to show preparation for the attack shows the black mercenary being marched through a trench at gunpoint and being ordered to storm Ukrainian positions.
A Russian uses racist insults, telling the recruit he is being used as a “can opener” to blow himself up to “open” an enemy bunker.
The video emerged as Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa told The Telegraph that Russia was using Africans as “meat for the meat grinder” by tricking them into joining the war in Ukraine.
Thousands of Africans are thought to have been lured to the front lines, either under false pretences or with promises of hefty salaries, in a Moscow operation to replace heavy casualties in its own ranks.
Another video, published on Sunday, allegedly shows a group of new African mercenaries in a snow-covered forest singing songs in their own language. The Russian soldier filming says: “Look how many disposables there are.”
Laughing at the upbeat troops, he adds that “they will be singing differently” once they are deployed to the front.
Olexander Scherba, the Ukrainian ambassador to South Africa, told The Telegraph that a recent scandal, in which members of a South African political party with close ties to Moscow had been forced into combat, showed the Kremlin did not care about its allies.
In an interview at the Ukrainian embassy in Pretoria, Mr Scherba said: “There might be all kinds of charm offensives on the African continent, but once an African person comes to this war, they just become meat for the meat grinder.”
Mr Scherba added that the scandal showed Russia “looks at Africa through imperial eyes”.
Several African countries have recently warned against scams promising work and study opportunities in Russia that instead sent applicants to fight and die.
Olexander Scherba, the Ukrainian ambassador to South Africa
Olexander Scherba, the Ukrainian ambassador to South Africa, has described how Russia is tricking Africans into joining the war on Ukraine
South Africa has been captivated by the case of 17 men allegedly lured to Russia for bodyguard training by Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of its disgraced former president, Jacob Zuma.
The men told reporters they thought they would then return to work in the protection unit of Mr Zuma’s Mkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party.
Instead, they were made to sign army contracts, sent to the front line and still remain there, despite the former president, who has close relations with Russia, pleading for Moscow to help them.
Ms Zuma-Sambudla insists that she thought the men were only undergoing non-combat paramilitary training.
The 43-year-old, who is an MP with her father’s party and has frequently spoken in support of Vladimir Putin, said she had been deceived and never intended to recruit anyone for combat or mercenary activity.
A letter purporting to be from Mr Zuma to Andrey Belousov, Russia’s defence minister, alleged the men had been “misled” and had signed contracts under “patently misleading circumstances”.
There is no suggestion that Mr Zuma was aware of, or involved in, any attempt to mislead the men.
Mr Scherba said: “The whole saga about Zuma’s family members, if the saga is true and it looks like that, is just evidence of how Russia in the end does not value Africans.
“Even those who are dedicated to Russia, even those who love Russia, in the end they still can wind up just as meat in the meat grinder.”
While poor Russians make up the majority of Putin’s forces, Ukraine has estimated as many as 1,400 Africans are serving on the front lines. Hundreds of others are thought to have died.
Some African recruits are thought to have known what they were getting into, while others were tricked with offers of jobs and scholarships. Fighting for a foreign army is illegal under South African law.
This year, Nairobi began investigating the trafficking of Kenyans to fight, after Ukrainian troops captured Evans Kibet, a long-distance runner who said he had been misled into going to Russia for an exhibition race.
The Kenyan government has now found at least 82 citizens caught up in the Ukraine war.
In a video released this week by the Ukrainian military, a Ugandan prisoner of war called Richard Akantoran said he had taken out a bank loan to travel to Russia after being promised a job in a supermarket.
Another typical story is the case of Richard Kanu, who served in Sierra Leone’s military for more than 10 years, before looking for work in St Petersburg.
He said he applied for a job by signing some Russian-language paperwork, but did not realise he had signed a contract to join the Russian army until he arrived at a base in Rostov-on-Don, just outside Ukraine. He is now a prisoner of war.
Jean Onana, from Cameroon, told Ukrainian interrogators he travelled to Russia for a job in a shampoo factory.
He had barely arrived in Moscow when he was detained along with 10 others from Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Ghana, and made to serve on the front line.
Mr Scherba also warned anyone swayed by offers of a hefty pay packet that they were unlikely to see any money.
He said there were “so many ways for Russians to trick you out of your money” and said life expectancy on the front line for new recruits was often only about 72 hours.
He said: “Just imagine how short the life expectancy for Africans is, because they care about foreigners much less than they care about their own citizens.
“Even if you survive this and even if there is any money at the end of it, it won’t be righteous money, you will be fighting on the side of the aggressor, on the side of a colonial power.”
Ukraine has been trying to grow its diplomatic clout in Africa but is running up against decades of skilful Russian influence-building.
At the start of Putin’s invasion, many nations on the continent refused to condemn the aggression, or vote against Russia in the United Nations.
Mr Scherba said that was because few in Africa had expected Ukraine to survive.
He said: “The whole world, not only Africa, thought that Ukraine didn’t stand a chance. The plan that the Russians had was to take Kyiv in three days and all of Ukraine within 15 days.”
Many on the continent thought the world was on the verge of a new Cold War and wanted to open doors to both sides, so did not want to condemn Russia.
Mr Scherba said Russian popularity on the continent was “not as much Russia’s strength as the West’s weakness”.
“The global wave of anti-Americanism and anti-Western mood is very much present on this continent,” he said.
“It’s part of reality and Russia is using this sentiment that blames the West and somehow tends to see Russia as innocent no matter what happens.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/01/12/russia-using-africans-cannon-fodder-ukraine/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_youtube_using-africans-cannon-fodder-ukraine%2F
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