“Put in a cage like a dog”: a Kenyan deceived by the Russians told how he managed to escape from the war against Ukraine
A Kenyan citizen told how, after being promised a job as a security guard in Russia, he ended up in the war against Ukraine. After signing the documents, he was actually forced to serve in the Russian army, and his attempts to escape, after several injuries, ended in detention and cruel treatment.
Despite persecution and other obstacles, the man still managed to leave the Russian Federation and return home.
Former Kenyan soldier Samuel Maina Kariuki became an easy target for Russian recruiters. After losing his job in the Russian Federation, he was offered a job as a security guard in a shopping mall in Russia. The man agreed to the offer and signed the documents, not even suspecting what it would turn out like.
After completing the paperwork, his bank accounts were blocked and he was sent to a military barracks. There, the Kenyan and other citizens of African countries were informed that they had already signed contracts with the Russian Armed Forces and could no longer refuse to serve.
Soon, Samuel found himself on the front line, where, according to him, the fighting was quite intense: bodies of the dead lay everywhere, and Ukrainian drones were constantly working on the positions.
Subsequently, the unit in which the Kenyan served was sent to storm the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Kostyantynivka. As a result, only six out of approximately 150 soldiers managed to survive. Kariuki himself was seriously wounded, but after a short treatment he was returned to the front.
During the next battles, he received another wound, after which he ended up in the hospital and decided to escape from Russia at any cost.
How the mercenary managed to escape
After that, the foreigner turned to the Kenyan embassy for help, bought a plane ticket and tried to leave the territory of the Russian Federation. However, during a check at the airport, security officers examined his phone and found that he had served in the Russian army, after which the man was detained and handed over to the military police.
“I was put in a cage for three days, like a dog. I was only given chocolate and water. I was not allowed to go out at all, so I peed in a bottle,” Kariuki recalled.
After the man was sent to the front for the third time, he again decided to escape. To help the Kenyan return home, the family had to borrow money for the trip to Moscow and a plane ticket to Nairobi. This time the man was able to board a plane and leave Russian territory.
Lavrov’s African tour
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov continues his trips to African countries, whose citizens Russia is actively recruiting as mercenaries for the Russian army. The day before, he visited Niger, where he held talks with the state leadership, and also met with the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso and Mali.
It is currently unknown whether Lavrov’s African counterparts raised the issue of recruiting their citizens for a foreign war, but we know for sure about Nigeriens, Burkinabe and Malians who signed a contract with the Russian Armed Forces. Moreover, we know the names of some of them, and we are publishing them today. We would like to emphasize separately that there are much more African mercenaries from these countries than 101 people. As well as more than 16 deaths among them, which we reliably know about. Literally the same day after the publication of the list of recruited Ethiopian citizens, relatives of the country’s citizens who went missing began to write to us.
So, despite the growing international pressure from the states whose citizens Russia recruits for the war, the Kremlin is not giving up this practice.
In this way, the Russian Federation is trying to compensate for the shortage of personnel for assault units, using foreigners as a cheap and easily replaceable human resource. Their recruitment is relatively inexpensive for Russia, and due to deception and the vulnerable social position of such people, they can easily be drawn into the war, and not be responsible for their further fate.