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Ukraine captures Kenyans fighting for Russia in war
Prisoners of war stand in formation inside a Ukrainian detention facility where foreign fighters are held under strict supervision as part of wartime operations linked to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
What you need to know:
- A Ukrainian Embassy official said the four Kenyans are among many foreign nationals recruited by Russia to fight on the battle frontline.
- Government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura and Foreign Affairs PS Korir Sing’oei had not responded to our inquiries by the time of publication.
Ukrainian forces have captured at least four Kenyans fighting for Russia’s military in the ongoing three-year-old war.
A Ukrainian Embassy official on Thursday said that the four Kenyans are among many foreign nationals recruited by Russia to fight on the battle frontline. The four Kenyans were identified as Peter Njenga, Felix Mutahi, Martin Munene and Evans.
A video posted on Facebook in June shows Njenga, Mutahi and Munene identifying themselves among several other foreigners as they prepared to join Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura and Foreign Affairs PS Korir Sing’oei had not responded to our inquiries by the time of this article's publication.
It is still unclear how, or why, the Kenyans joined Russia’s military. But in a past visit to a prisoners-of-war camp in Kyiv, the Nation established that several Africans had been lured into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with promises of scholarships and jobs.
At the time, the Nation did not encounter any Kenyans in the camp.
The 57th Motorized Infantry Brigade—a unit of Ukraine’s ground forces—has released a video of a Kenyan who only identified himself as Evans, and who claimed that he was a tourist duped into joining Russia’s military.
The man in the video said that he is an athlete and that on the last day of the Russian visit, his host proposed a lucrative job opportunity. After promising to sort out bureaucracies like a work visa, the host returned the following day with a bunch of papers typed out in Russian, the man in the video added.
Prisoners of war camp
Evans said that he boarded a private car in the company of other Russian individuals, and that his host refused to divulge the nature of the job. The paperwork turned out to be a contract to fight for Russia.
“The host directed me where to sign and where to write my name before he left with the documents. All this time, he was not willing to inform me what kind of job he was linking me up with,” he said, adding that his phone and Kenyan passport were afterwards confiscated.
“I later found myself inside a military camp. When I asked them what I was doing inside a training camp, they informed me that I had signed for the job and I had to take it. The trainers and bosses are Russians and during the training they were speaking in Russian. It was very difficult for me to understand anything,” he said.
Evans added that he was handed a rifle and ordered to join a unit. Instead, he manoeuvred his way through the forest and surrendered to Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv Oblast, near Vovchansk town.
During the visit to the prisoners of war camp in Kyiv, the Nation found Africans from Togo, Ghana, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Egypt and Tunisia. The script was the same for them—after training for between one and three months, they were handed rifles and deployed to the frontline.
For some, they needed to escape the harsh realities in their home countries, and they would do it again if given a chance. For others, regret had set in, and they wished they could go back home.
The video, and confirmation by the Ukrainian Embassy official that Kenyans are among prisoners of war in Kyiv’s custody, follows the August 2023 death of Ugandan computer science student Habib Bosco Magara, who was in Russia on a scholarship. Lemekani Nathan Nyirenda, a Zambian student, was in September 2022 killed while fighting for Russia.
Their deaths raised questions—which Moscow has never answered—on whether Russia used scholarships and jobs to lure Africans into the war.
