For months, the Russian army has secretly recruited hundreds, if not thousands, of jobless migrant workers in Qatar to fight on the frontline against Ukraine.
By Sam Kunti and Håvard Melnæs
On 15 May, Marfo Nicholas Kwaku from Ghana was pictured holding a rifle and wearing a helmet, a tactical vest and camouflage fatigues. There are no insignia on his outfit. He looks into the lens with a serious stare. Behind him, at the entrance of a bunker, stands another soldier.
How did Marfo, a former school teacher hailing from rural West Africa, who went to Qatar in 2019 to work at a fish factory where he stayed for the better part of six years, with no experience as a soldier, end up in Vladimir Putin’s army, embroiled in the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
The war has already claimed the lives of nearly 50,000 Ukrainians, with another reported 380,000 wounded. According to reports, one million Russian soldiers have been killed or injured, including over 250,000 confirmed deaths. The enormous number of casualties has made Russian president Vladimir Putin search for new avenues outside his regular army to recruit soldiers. First, convicts were released on a large scale from Russian prisons to cover up for the huge losses. Two years ago, in October 2023, the prison population had fallen from 420 000 to 266 000, a decline that was attributed to the recruitment of prisoners.
In late 2024, Ukrainian and American security officials said that a...
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