Hundreds of Kenyans enlisted by the Russian army in Ukraine
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on RFI
Illustrative image · Isaac Naph · Pexels · Licence PexelsThe Kenyan government must compensate the families of Kenyans recruited by the Russian army, and Moscow banned such enlistments on 30 October 2026. An agreement for the return of the recruits was announced on 31 October by President William Ruto.
Kenya is the leading African country supplying recruits to the Russian army engaged in Ukraine, the French weekly Le Point reports, which met in Kibera, a slum in southern Nairobi, Susan Kuloba, 40. Her son David, who left to "earn a little money to get his mother out of the ghetto", was killed on the battlefield after being recruited by the Russian army on the strength of a false job promise.
According to Le Point, the pattern is almost always the same: a recruitment agency publishes an attractive offer, then the young Kenyans are incorporated into the Russian troops as soon as they arrive in Russia, without ever receiving the promised salaries. Many are deployed in the occupied Donbass, the area most exposed to Ukrainian drones. The bereaved families do not always obtain the repatriation of the body and then organise fake funerals, burying bananas or tea branches in a shroud.
Le Point adds that several Kenyan officials — MPs, ministers, police officers and magistrates — are suspected of being involved in this recruitment on Moscow's behalf.
This investigation appears after Russia announced, on 30 October, the ban on recruiting Kenyans into its army and a scheme to compensate recruits, as reported by Russia banning the recruitment of Kenyans and committing to compensate them.
