Foreigners used by Russia as cannon fodder in war: lured with high salaries and citizenship, but fall in battle within hours

In September and October 2023, passport details belonging to more than 200 Cubans who allegedly joined the Russian military were leaked online by a pro-Ukrainian platform called InformNapalm.

The passport details were obtained, according to the website, by hacking the emails of a Russian military recruitment officer in Tula, south of Moscow.

A search of Facebook showed that 31 of the names mentioned in the data leak match people who appear to be in Russia or connected to the Russian military.

Some, for example, posted photos of themselves wearing Russian military uniform or in locations bearing Russian street signs or Russian license plates. Others list Russia as their current place of residence.

Many of these Facebook users began posting Russia-related content in August 2023, indicating when they would have arrived in the country.

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has suffered heavy losses on the battlefield. A BBC investigation has confirmed the names of more than 50,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine – but the real number is likely to be much higher. According to Ukrainian estimates, the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in the war is 500,000.

Recruiting foreigners to replace some of the losses also helps the Kremlin avoid the risks of mobilizing Russians by force. When Russia declared a partial mobilization in 2022, hundreds of thousands of men left the country.

Bringing Cubans to Russia is relatively simple. The two countries have been allies since the Cold War, Cubans do not need a visa to travel to Russia, and direct flights to Moscow make travel easier.

Salaries and the promise of obtaining Russian citizenship

Meanwhile, lucrative military contracts offered by Russia lure Cuban men desperate to escape the worsening economic crisis on the US-sanctioned island.

Documents leaked online and media reports suggest that Cuban men are offered monthly payments of around $2,000 a month – a huge sum for Cuba, where the average monthly wage is under $35. The promise of Russian citizenship may also entice some Cubans.

Since the start of the war against Ukraine, Moscow has made it much easier for foreigners to obtain Russian citizenship after serving time in the military, and the BBC has reviewed social media posts suggesting some Cuban fighters have received Russian passports within months from registration.

A Russian passport allows visa-free travel to 117 destinations, while Cuban passport holders are limited to 61.

A local media outlet in the city of Reazan, near Moscow, appeared to corroborate this theory last year when it published photos of new Cuban recruits signing contracts with the Russian military.

The Cubans wanted to “help our country achieve the objectives of the special military operation”, the institution reported, adding that “some of them would like to become Russian citizens in the future”.

But finding a reliable estimate of the number of Cubans who joined the ranks of the Russians is difficult. Ukraine’s diplomatic envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ruslan Spirin, put the number at 400 in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

A Cuban officer in Russia, Lázaro Gonzalez, told an exiled anti-government radio station that 90 Cubans serve under his command.

According to him, they are likely to be deployed in the already occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, rather than in front-line positions.

“While the Russian army is occupying areas of Ukraine, what we Cubans are doing is supporting the army in those cities and in those areas that are occupied, that’s all”Gonzalez told the Miami radio station.

Numerous reports suggest that Cubans often joined the Russian military after coming into contact with recruiters on social media, but that not all of them seemed aware of the true nature of the job on offer.

A popular Cuban YouTube creator last year recounted the plight of two 19-year-olds from Cuba who claimed they were offered construction jobs in Russia but were sent to the front lines in Ukraine.

Unprepared, they fall in battle in hours, not days

Their case echoes the experiences of other foreigners who told the BBC they were lured to Russia by the promise of higher wages – only to end up on the battlefield.

For their part, Cuban authorities have issued conflicting statements regarding the involvement of their citizens in the war in Ukraine.

Following a wave of reports in September 2023 about Cubans fighting in Ukraine, authorities in Havana said they had arrested 17 people involved in their recruitment.

However, shortly thereafter, Cuba’s ambassador to Russia, Julio Antonio Garmendía Peña, stated that his government had nothing against Cubans who wanted “simply sign a contract and legally participate in this operation alongside the Russian Army”.

Hours later, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said Havana was against it “participation of Cuban citizens in conflicts of any kind”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said they had noticed an increase in the number of foreign fighters joining Russian forces in recent months, as well as foreigners among soldiers captured by the Ukrainian army on the battlefield.

Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s POW agency, told the BBC that many of them came from low-income countries such as Cuba, India and Nepal, as well as African and Central Asian states.

“Each week we capture up to five people from foreign countries on the front lines as prisoners of war,” he said.

Their fighting skills are quite low, the official added, meaning their life expectancy on the battlefield is not even days, but hours.