Anna Mogato | September 17, 2026
MANILA — At least 14 Filipinos have been “illegally” recruited to fight for the Russian Army in the four-year war in Ukraine, part of a growing mercenary force from Asia’s central, south, and southeast regions.
Migrant workers from these Asian regions, seeking higher pay, were lured into the war, becoming victims of human trafficking, according to Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation who spoke at a European External Action Service (EEAS) briefing.
“Largely, most of the South Asians recruited to fight on the front line are again being used as [an] expendable force […], as cannon fodder,” Shivamurthy said.
“This is largely because, again, the training— sometimes people are hardly trained even for a week, and then they are just let go to fight on the battlefield.”
Economic crises and difficulty in finding employment in South Asian nations, such as in Sri Lanka and Nepal, have pushed even the youth to find opportunities abroad.
Unofficial reports showed that around 2,000 South Asians — mostly from Nepal and Sri Lanka — have been recruited to fight for Russia, and 455 of these have been killed
Munira Mustaffa, executive director of Chasseur Group and senior fellow at Verve Research, said Russian recruiters were doing the same in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines.
Mustaffa said of the 14 Filipinos that have been recruited, and one has been reported killed, while another was captured in Ukraine. (Also read: Dangerous recruitment)
“I think it’s largely because, for strategic reasons, I think Russia sees value in maintaining a positive ongoing relationship with ASEAN nations,” Mustaffa said.
“We’re sitting on the oil corridor of the world, and in that regard, it’s quite a complex picture because I’ve seen some allegations, insinuations of people being recruited here because they’re ideologically aligned with Russia, but I think it’s a very simplistic way of looking at it.”
Mustaffa said that while some Southeast Asians have undergone voluntary recruitment, citing Indonesian mercenaries Muhammad Rio and Satria Kumbara as examples, they are seeing a similarity between Russia’s recruitment strategy and the Myanmar scam hub model.
Lucrative job offers that pay thousands of dollars a month are posted through online ads, social media, and websites, which are used to lure Southeast Asians to circumvent strict anti-mercenary regulations.
“Because if you dig through the websites, it’s going to say that it’s based in Kazakhstan or any of the other countries outside Russia for the possible deniability [that it’s for military recruitment],” Mustaffa said.
In Central Asia, Artur Alkhastov, a Kazakh independent lawyer who co-authored a report on Russia’s recruitment of foreign nationals, said that migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan are in the top five nationalities recruited into the Russian army.
Mustaffa said that Ukraine has also recruited foreign nationals through an established international legion for transparency. (Also read: Philippines should avoid getting involved in the Ukraine-Russia conflict)
However, there were some issues, such as mismanagement and vetting issues, after there were some reports that neo-nazis were applying to join.
“There is awareness that they are advertising for volunteer combatants, but it’s not at the same scale or method as Russia’s brokers are doing,” Mustaffa said.
“We do have one Malaysian who joined the Ukrainian international legion, but only found his personal reason is that he greatly desired to join a conflict, and I think that he understood the consequence of doing that.”
Shivamurthy, for his part, said that there are reports of former Sri Lankan military personnel joining Ukrainian ranks for economic incentives.
On the other hand, stronger bilateral relations with Russia have pushed South Asians to end up on Russia’s side of the war.
“I think that Russia sees benefit in prolonging the war because they will benefit from the war [of] attrition, because the whole point is to exhaust Ukraine out of its supply and resources,” Mustaffa said. (Also read: The Strategic Intelligence Assessment on Ukraine Putin Underestimated (Part II))
“That’s exactly why these people [migrant workers] are being used as cannon fodder.”