Two Indians duped into fighting for Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine returned to Kerala recently, and spoke to the BBC about their harrowing experiences there.
Both recounted how they were taken to Russia on the false pretext of jobs that would pay around Rs 2 lakh a month, and then forced to take position on the frontiers for a bloody conflict that has now stretched for over two years.
Reports of young Indian men being misled into joining the war first came out in February. Two men – one from Gujarat and another from Telangana – have died in action.
The Indian government has described it as “a matter of very, very deep concern” for India, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar saying the Centre has taken up the matter “strongly with Russia”.
Last month, the CBI busted a “major human trafficking network” involved in the racket, saying many of the Indians sent abroad were promised admissions to Russian universities.
The CBI has booked several private visa consultancy firms and agents who were allegedly a part of the racket.
The two young men who spoke to the BBC revealed how they had to borrow lakhs to pay travel agents for facilitating their travel to Russia.
Their experiences on the battlefield – of narrow escapes, grievous injuries, and close-ups with war’s fatal face – offer a chilling cautionary tale.
David Moothappan: A Fisherman From Kerala’s Pozhiyoor
According to a BBC report published last week, 23-year-old David Moothappan’s ordeal began when he came across a Facebook ad for security guard jobs in Russia last October.
A school dropout, he was immediately drawn in by the salary on offer – 204,000 roubles (Rs 1.82 lakh) a month.
Once in Russia, he told the BBC, he found himself on the frontlines in Donetsk — a city in eastern Ukraine held by Russia.
There, he saw “body parts strewn all over the ground”, and it left him nauseated. As he began vomiting and “almost fainted”, the Russian officer “commanding us told me to return to the camp”.
He also reportedly fractured his leg around Christmas while fighting in a “remote place”, following which he shuffled between different hospitals in Rostov, Volgograd, and Luhansk, for two and a half months before making a partial recovery.
In March, a group of Indians helped him reach the country’s embassy in Moscow and arranged his travel back home, the report quotes him as saying.
While he is back home and safe, he is still haunted by the horrors he saw on the battlefield. “It’s death and destruction everywhere,” he said, adding that he is grateful he didn’t kill anyone.
“One time, the Ukrainians were some 200m away. We were asked to go on the offensive but I didn’t fire a single shot at them,” he told the BBC. “I can’t kill anybody.”
Prince Sebastian: A Fisherman From Kerala’s Anchuthengu
Prince Sebastian came across the job offer when he and two of his friends approached a travel agent for potential employment opportunities in Europe. The agent, currently on the run, suggested a security guard’s job in Russia, saying it would pay Rs 2 lakh/month.
The friends reportedly paid Rs 7,00,000 each to the agent for a Russian visa, and reached Moscow on January 4. There, the report says, they were welcomed by an Indian agent named Alex, who spoke Malayalam.
The friends spent their first night in a flat, after which Alex took them to a military officer in a city named Kostroma, the report says, adding that they were then made to sign a contract drafted in Russian, a language they couldn’t read.
He said they were joined by three Sri Lankan recruits there, and the six were taken to a military camp in Rostov, a region bordering Ukraine. Their passports and mobile phones were reportedly taken away from them.
Their training began on 10 January, and it involved lessons in using handheld anti-tank grenades.
Subsequently, they were transferred to a secondary base called Alabino Polygon, where they trained “day and night” for 10 days continuously, the BBC report says.
They had “all kinds of armaments waiting for us there and I started enjoying the weapons like toys”, Sebastian is quoted as saying.
However, Sebastian said, he only realised what he had gotten himself into when the brutal reality of the war hit him on the battlefield.
He was deployed as part of a group of 30 fighters in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Lysychansk, handling weapons such as RPG-30 (a handheld, disposable rocket-propelled grenade launcher) and bombs.
Within the first 15 minutes on the front, a bullet fired from close range “pierced below his left ear”. When he fell, he landed on the body of a dead Russian soldier.
“I was shocked and I couldn’t move. After an hour, as the night fell, another bomb exploded. It badly injured my left leg,” Sebastian told the BBC.
He said he spent the entire night bleeding in a trench. The next morning, he escaped and spent the next few weeks in different hospitals, receiving treatment, the report says.
Since he was injured, he got a month’s leave to recover, and that was when a priest helped him contact the Indian embassy. The embassy issued him a temporary passport and helped Sebastian return home.
Now, Sebastian told the BBC, he hopes to resume fishing as he has to repay the money he borrowed from lenders.
Meanwhile, the two friends who went with him remain missing.
MEA Statement
The Ministry of External Affairs says “several Indian nationals have been duped to work in the Russian army… We have strongly taken up the matter for the early discharge of such Indian nationals”.
“Strong action has been initiated against agents who recruited them on false pretexts. We remain committed to the early release of our nationals serving as support staff with the Russian army and then eventually return home,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press conference.
The ministry also urged “all Indian nationals to exercise due caution and stay away from this conflict”.
The CBI investigation into the matter has revealed that the agents heading the racket utilise social media channels such as YouTube to lure “gullible” youth to travel to Russia.
A man from Uttar Pradesh told the BBC for another report that he had been lured to Moscow this way, on the pretext of a job with a monthly salary of Rs 1.5 lakh. “We were not told that we are being drafted in an army,” he added.
As part of its probe, the CBI conducted searches at 13 locations, including Mumbai and Delhi, and seized Rs 50 lakh in cash, electronic devices, and “incriminating documents”.