Kenya will demand explanations from Russia following reports that its citizens are being recruited to fight in the Ukraine conflict, the country’s foreign minister has stated.
Musalia Mudavadi said in an interview on Tuesday that the recruitment efforts were “unacceptable and clandestine.”
He noted that the government has shut down unauthorized recruitment operations and will push Moscow to sign an agreement prohibiting the conscription of Kenyan nationals.
Nairobi estimates around 200 of its citizens have been recruited to fight for Russia, and Mudavadi explained that families have faced challenges retrieving the bodies of loved ones killed in the war.
“It’s challenging because it depends on where the body was found,” the foreign minister told the BBC. “Some have been located in Ukraine—we are also collaborating with the Ukrainian government to repatriate the remains of these individuals.”
In a November post on X, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha revealed that Kyiv estimates at least 1,436 foreign nationals from 36 African countries have been recruited to fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine, cautioning that the actual number might be higher.
Sybiha added that Russia employs various tactics to recruit foreigners, including financial incentives, deception, and coercion.
“Signing a contract [with Russia] is equivalent to signing a death sentence,” he wrote. “These recruits face a tragic fate. Most are immediately sent to the so-called ‘meat assaults,’ where they are quickly killed.”
Mudavadi mentioned in December that the government had received numerous emails and urgent communications from Kenyans in distress at military camps in Russia.
“Several of them have reported injuries among our nationals and others stranded following attempted recruitment into the Russian military,” he told the Kenya News Agency, the country’s state-run news service.
Mudavadi stated that the government has since tightened recruitment regulations, deregistering more than 600 non-compliant agencies and strengthening job verification processes through the Diaspora Placement Agency to curb exploitation.