The Russian Federation has hired over 18,000 foreigners across the world to help wage its war against Ukraine, it has emerged. Ukraine’s Secretary of the Coordination Headquarters, Brig Gen Dmitry Usov, said these foreign nationals have been brought in from 128 countries and unrecognised territories, and 3,388 of them have been killed.

Speaking at the international Crimea Global conference in Kyiv earlier this week, Mr Usov said that these 18,000 individuals are those “whose names are known with certainty” to Ukraine. He recalled that, starting in 2023, Russia has created an extensive global recruitment network and, through this, the Russians are attempting to compensate for the heavy losses suffered by their armed forces.

Mr Usov added that the number of contracts signed each month by foreign citizens with the Russian armed forces was initially in the hundreds but has since increased to thousands.

“The main motive for most of these mercenaries is financial gain,” Mr Usov said, but stressed that “many people have ended up in the Russian army through fraud or coercion,” according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War on Telegram.

He added that Ukraine is holding prisoners of war from 37 countries who fought for Russia, noting that “the Russian Federation has no interest in bringing citizens of other states back from captivity in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners”.

“Russia has not requested the exchange of a single foreign national, apart from citizens of North Korea,” he said.

In autumn 2024, it was reported that North Korean soldiers were fighting in Ukraine and that several thousand more were undergoing training in Russia and were likely to be deployed to the war. In November, the US confirmed that North Korean forces were taking part in combat operations in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk had already suffered losses.

According to PBS, growing numbers of mercenaries from Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda and other African nations are also being recruited by Russia. In fact, so many troops from Cameroon have joined up that the Cameroonian Defence Ministry ordered its officers to “immediately take appropriate measures against desertion.”

Meanwhile, it was revealed earlier this month that young people from Iraq are being lured to fight in the war via social media, with promises of passports and lucrative monthly salaries of £2,100. Influencers and recruiters on TikTok and Telegram are enhancing the allure of fighting on the frontlines by advertising opportunities to join Russia’s ranks, offering sign-up bonuses of up to nearly £15,400.

The general promised that the Coordination Headquarters is doing everything necessary to bring all Ukrainian POWs home from Russian prisons and torture chambers as quickly as possible.

Mr Usov also noted that Ukraine has been able to significantly slow down Russia’s international recruitment efforts thanks to coordinated work by the Coordination Headquarters, Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry and members of parliament.