Amnesty: Russian recruitment of foreign nationals is human trafficking

Amnesty International accuses Russia of human trafficking through recruitment of foreign nationals to fight in Ukraine.

Recruits were promised lucrative salaries, sign-up bonuses, and pathways to Russian citizenship, but many received nothing and were coerced into enlisting.

Amnesty interviewed foreign nationals from various countries who reported having their passports seized, inadequate military training, and contracts only in Russian.

Russia's recruitment of foreign nationals to fight in the war in Ukraine "amounts to human trafficking," Amnesty International said on Thursday.

"Many recruits were promised lucrative salaries and sign-up bonuses that were not fulfilled. While some received partial payments before being captured, many reported receiving nothing at all," the human rights organization said in a press release on the new report.

"Beyond financial remuneration, all those interviewed described promised pathways to Russian citizenship as a particular incentive."

Russian recruiters used coercion, fraud and deception to persuade foreigners to enlist in the Russian military, Amnesty said.

"The level of exploitation and coercion involved led us to conclude that in many cases this amounts to human trafficking, as defined under the UN's Palermo Protocol," said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary general.

Amnesty said it interviewed more than one dozen foreign nationals including from Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Somalia and South Africa during six visits to two Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camps between 2024 and 2026.

Only three of those interviewed had knowingly signed a contract to fight in Ukraine, it said.

Prisoners of war from Brazil and Sri Lanka told Amnesty that, after signing the contracts, their passports and mobile phones were seized, according to the organization.

They also said that the contracts were in Russian only and that nobody spoke English. The recruits only received inadequate basic military training lasting around two weeks, according to the report.

Amnesty noted it was unable to conduct investigations in Russia where the organization has been banned since May 2025.

In Ukraine - no reports of human trafficking, but other problems

Amnesty said that it has received no evidence of possible human trafficking involving third-country nationals in the Ukrainian army.

However, there are indications of corruption, discrimination and mistreatment by superiors, it said, with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reportedly investigating the matter.

Just under 16,000 foreign nationals from more than 70 countries, including nearly 40% from Latin American countries, are currently serving in the Ukrainian army, which counts a total of some 880,000 troops, according to the latest information provided by Kiev.

According to Ukraine, more than 28,000 foreign nationals have enlisted in the Russian military since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The General Staff in Kiev recently put the total number of Russian troops at slightly above 720,000.