Nigerian mechanic Bankole Matthew, 36, has recounted how economic despair led him to accept a dubious job in Russia, only to discover he had been tricked toward military service. “I did not know I was coming to Russia to fight a war,” Matthew stated.
In a now viral video, made available to this media, Bankole explained that an acquaintance sent a contract written in Russian, instructing him only to insert his name. After a swift visa process and a flight from Abuja to Moscow, his confusion began upon arrival.
“I was confused when I arrived and when I started to see soldiers,” he said. “Once you enter the camp, no more going back.”
Matthew had envisioned using the promised salary of 500,000 rubles to support his family and start a business in Nigeria. “I never queried what I signed, because I was just happy to go earn a living,” he admitted, highlighting the vulnerability that made him a target.
His story is not an isolated case, but part of a broader pattern.
Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of funneling such recruits directly to the front lines. “Russia uses Africans as ‘meat for the meat grinder,’” stated Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa, with estimates of hundreds of African casualties from the battlefield.
Separately, but related, Russia has also been accused of the systematic exploitation of young African women, predominantly between ages 18 and 22, through the “Alabuga Start” program. Marketed as a work-study program in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, it recruits via social media, promising high salaries. Following reports from South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Brazil, the scandal has surfaced in Ghana.
Testimonies describe recruits forced into 12-hour shifts assembling military drones, handling skin-damaging chemicals without protection, their wages slashed and passports confiscated, conditions bearing the hallmarks of trafficking.
This dual pipeline, one funnelling men toward the front and another funnelling young women into militarized factories, confirms a global system preying on economic desperation to supply Russia’s war effort with vulnerable foreign labor.
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