Kenya and Russia agree no Kenyans will be recruited for Ukraine war

Kenyan foreign minister meets Russian counterpart amid reports that hundreds of Kenyans were recruited to fight in Russia and Ukraine.

Russia has agreed to stop recruiting Kenyan citizens to fight with its army in Ukraine, Kenya’s foreign minister has said.

More than 1,780 citizens from 36 African countries are believed to be fighting alongside Russian soldiers in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s estimates in February.

“We have now agreed that Kenyans shall not be enlisted through the [Russian] Ministry of Defence,” Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi told reporters on Monday.

He made the statement sitting beside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after the two held talks in Moscow, Russia.

“His excellency has conversed with us on the ⁠issue of the welfare of Kenyans who are in Russia and more specifically those who are involved in the special operation,” Mudavadi said.

“There will be no further enlisting.”

Mudavadi added that consular services would be organised for those Kenyans requiring assistance through proper diplomatic channels.

“We do not want for ⁠any reason our partnership with Russia to ⁠be defined from the lens of the special operation [in Ukraine] agenda only,” he said. “The relationship between Kenya and Russia is much more broader than that.”

Lavrov did not mention the agreement in his remarks to the media, but said the Russian Defence Ministry was looking into cases that had caused “concern among our Kenyan friends”.

“Russia is not forcing anyone to enlist,” Lavrov said.

He said ⁠that Kenyan citizens had voluntarily signed contracts to fight alongside the Russian army.

A Kenyan intelligence report presented to lawmakers in February said that more than 1,000 Kenyans had been recruited to fight on Russia’s side in the war in Ukraine, five times more than authorities had previously estimated.

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been widely accused of recruiting foreign nationals to fight alongside its army.

Kenyan politicians have described what they say is a network of rogue state officials who have colluded with human trafficking syndicates ‌to ‌recruit Kenyans to fight for Russia in Ukraine, a practice Nairobi said it wanted to stop.

In November, reports emerged that a group of South Africans ages 20-39 had travelled to Russia expecting to receive security training.

Instead, they were soon pressed into a paramilitary force and dispatched to the front lines in Ukraine.