Russia lures foreign fighters for war in Ukraine

Recruits from Middle East and elsewhere promised citizenship and a raft of benefits.

- NABIH BULOS

ESTIMATES PUT the number of foreign fighters serving in Russian army ranks in the tens of thousands.

The ad was straightforward: Sign up for one year to fight on Russia's side in "the special military operation zone" — i.e. the war in Ukraine — and get citizenship, free healthcare, money and land.

It was one of many promotions cropping up on the messaging platform Telegram beginning in 2024, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed foreign nationals fighting in the army's ranks would receive passports for themselves and their families. Since then, travel agencies and brokers have drawn people from all over the world to join what they call Russia's "elite international battalion," dangling a raft of benefits to attract would-be recruits.

For Raed Hammad, a 54-year-old Jordanian man who worked as a cab driver until a herniated disk made sitting in a car seat all day untenable, it seemed like the opportunity he never found in his home country. He contacted a Russian businesswoman, Polina Alexandrovna, whose number was on the Telegram ad, and sent his passport information. In August, he received a visa and flight ticket and flew to Moscow.

(Other media reports put Alexandrovna's last name as Azarnykh. It's unclear if her name is a pseudonym.)

"As a 54-year-old who was sick, he had a hard time finding employment here in Jordan. When he found this job, and they accepted him with a very attractive salary and benefits, he didn't think twice," said Lamees Hammad, his wife, in a tearful video address she posted on social media in September. Because of his age, Lamees Hammad added, her husband assumed he would work as a driver or a cook; she insisted he repeatedly confirmed with Alexandrovna that he wouldn't serve on the front line.