Summary
- The Ukrainian project "I Want To Live" estimates thousands of Central Asians have joined Russian forces, often lured by lucrative job offers or coerced.
- Poverty, unemployment, and Russian propaganda are key factors driving Central Asians to fight in Ukraine, according to experts.
Sundet Pernebek moved to Russia last year to take up a new lucrative job that would allow him to pay for his wedding.
But in May, the 26-year-old native of Kazakhstan appeared on a list of foreigners killed fighting for Russia in its nearly four-year-long war in Ukraine.
His name was published by the state-sponsored Ukrainian project -- I Want To Live -- which identifies foreigners fighting alongside Russian forces.
“For about five or six months after my son went to Russia, he would regularly call his mother,” Pernebek’s father, Bauyrzhan, told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service.
“During our last phone call, he said, ‘I’m going to work in a forested area for 10 days and there is poor connection there, so don’t worry [if I don’t call]. We didn’t hear from him ever again.”
Pernebek’s parents contacted the Kazakh Embassy in Moscow to help find their son but did not get any answers. They said he had been offered a well-paying job in Russia, and do not know how he ended up in Ukraine.
Pernebek’s father said the family held a symbolic funeral for his son. But he said he will not give up looking for him.
“We prayed for him, we held his funeral,” he said. “But until I see him with my own eyes and lay him to rest myself, I will not stop searching.”
Pernebek is believed to be among the hundreds of Central Asians who have been killed or are missing since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to the I Want To Live project, which regularly updates its list. That includes over 400 Tajiks, nearly 300 Kazakhs, over 100 Uzbeks, and dozens of Turkmen and Kyrgyz.
Thousands of men from Central Asia are believed to have joined Russian forces in Ukraine. Some were lured by offers of lucrative jobs. Others, mainly convicts and detainees, have been forced to join the Russian military.
The exact number of Central Asians who have fought in Ukraine is unknown. The I Want To Live project estimates that at least 3,000 men have gone to fight in Ukraine. The project said the real figure is likely to be much higher.
The Ukrainian project said its data comes from battlefield reports, prisoner interrogations, and appeals from families searching for their missing loved ones.
RFE/RL could not independently verify the names or figures published by the project.
“The list is not complete,” Vitaly Matvienko, a spokesman for the project, told RFE/RL. “The real number of Kazakh citizens killed or missing is likely several times higher.”
“Every month, we receive more than 50 requests from families looking for their relatives from Kazakhstan alone,” Matvienko added.
Central Asian migrants fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
Experts say poverty and a lack of job opportunities in Central Asia as well as the success of Russian propaganda are the main factors driving Central Asians to join Russia’s war.
“Some people are influenced by Russian propaganda. They watch Russian television, they believe they are fighting for a noble cause,” Kazakh military analyst Ermek Seitbattalov told RFE/RL. “Others are simply deceived with promises of high pay or Russian citizenship.”
Seitbattalov added that widespread unemployment and low wages in the region have made it easier for Russian recruiters to target Central Asians desperate to put food on the table for their families.
“You open any job site and see ads for work in [Russia like in] Siberia, Irkutsk, or the Far East -- high salaries, easy jobs. Behind some of those offers are [military] recruiters who send people to the war zone,” Seitbattalov said.
Akbar Qurbonov, a 23-year-old migrant worker from Uzbekistan, said he had signed a lucrative job offer to work as a driver in the Russian province of Roston-on-Don that borders Ukraine.
In a video recording obtained by RFE/RL, Qurbonov said he later realized that the job contract was in fact an agreement to join the Russian military and he ended up in Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk, which is largely controlled by Russian forces. Footage depicts Qurbonov pleading with the Uzbek authorities to help him return home.
RFE/RL could not independently verify his claims.
Qurbonov’s mother Ruzigul Boboeva told RFE/RL that she has asked the Uzbek authorities to bring back her son from Ukraine but has received little help.
Moscow has also recruited hundreds of Central Asians from prisons, detention facilities, and immigration detention centers across Russia.
Central Asia governments have repeatedly warned their citizens against taking part in military conflicts abroad, which is a criminal offense punishable by lengthy prison terms. But only a handful of cases have so far reached the courts.