A labour recruiter persuaded Maksudur Rahman to go away the tropical heat of his hometown in Bangladesh and journey 1000’s of miles to frigid Russia for a job as a janitor.
Within weeks, he discovered himself on the entrance traces of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
An Associated Press investigation discovered that Bangladeshi staff had been lured to Russia underneath the false promise of civilian work, solely to be thrust into the chaos of fight in Ukraine. Many had been threatened with violence, imprisonment or dying.
AP spoke with three Bangladeshi males who escaped from the Russian army, together with Rahman, who stated that after arriving in Moscow, he and a gaggle of fellow Bangladeshi staff had been instructed to signal Russian paperwork that turned out to be army contracts. They had been taken to a military camp for coaching in drone warfare strategies, medical evacuation procedures and primary fight expertise utilizing heavy weapons.
Rahman protested, complaining that this was not the work he agreed to do. A Russian commander supplied a stark reply by means of a translation app: “Your agent sent you here. We bought you.”
The three Bangladeshi males shared harrowing accounts of being coerced into front-line duties towards their will, together with advancing forward of Russian forces, transporting provides, evacuating wounded troopers and recovering the useless. The households of three different Bangladeshi males who’re lacking stated their family members shared comparable accounts with kinfolk.
Neither the Russian Defense Ministry, the Russian Foreign Ministry nor the South Asian nation’s authorities responded to a listing of questions from AP.
Rahman stated the employees in his group had been threatened with 10-year jail phrases and crushed.
“They’d say, ‘Why don’t you work? Why are you crying?’ and kick us,” stated Rahman, who escaped and returned residence after seven months.
The staff’ accounts had been corroborated by paperwork, together with journey papers, Russian army contracts, medical and police reviews, and images. The paperwork present the visas granted to Bangladeshi staff, their accidents sustained throughout battles and proof of their participation within the conflict.
How many Bangladeshis had been deceived into combating is unclear. The Bangladeshi males instructed AP they noticed a whole bunch of Bangladeshis alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
Officials and activists say Russia has additionally focused males from different African and South Asian international locations, together with India and Nepal.
In the luxurious greenery of the Lakshmipur district in southeast Bangladesh, practically each household has at the very least one member employed as a migrant employee abroad. Job shortage and poverty have made such work important.
Fathers embark on yearslong journeys for migrant work, returning residence just for fleeting visits, simply lengthy sufficient to conceive one other baby, whom they may probably not see once more for years. Sons and daughters help whole households with earnings earned overseas.
In 2024, Rahman was again in Lakshmipur after finishing a contract in Malaysia and searching for new work. A labor recruiter marketed a chance to work as a cleaner in a army camp in Russia. He promised $1,000 to $1,500 a month and the opportunity of everlasting residency.
Rahman took out a mortgage to pay the price of 1.2 million Bangladeshi taka, about $9,800, to the dealer as a price. He arrived in Moscow in December 2024.
Once in Russia, Rahman and three different Bangladeshi staff had been offered with a doc in Russian. Believing it was a contract for cleansing providers, Rahman signed.
Then they went to a army facility removed from Moscow, the place they had been issued weapons and underwent three days of coaching, studying to fireside, advance and administer first help. The group went to a barrack close to the Russia-Ukraine border and continued coaching.
Rahman and two others had been then despatched to front-line positions and ordered to dig pits inside a bunker.
“The Russians would take a group of say, five Bangladeshis. They would send us in front and stay at the back themselves,” he stated.
The males stayed in a leaky bunker within the rain as bombs fell a couple of kilometers away. Missiles flew overhead.
One particular person was serving meals. “The next moment, he was shot from a drone and fell to the ground right there. And then he was replaced,” Rahman stated.
Some Bangladeshi staff had been lured into the military with guarantees of positions removed from the entrance line.
Mohan Miajee enlisted within the Russian military after the job that originally introduced him to Russia – serving as an electrician for a gas-processing plant within the distant far east – was stricken by harsh working circumstances and relentless chilly.
While looking for employment on-line, Miajee was contacted by a Russian military recruiter. When he expressed his reluctance to kill, the recruiter stated his expertise as an electrician made him a great candidate for an digital warfare or drone unit that might be nowhere close to fight.
With his army papers so as, Miajee was taken in January 2025 to a army camp within the captured metropolis of Avdiivka. He confirmed the camp commander paperwork describing his expertise and defined that his recruiter had instructed him to ask for “electrical work.”
“The commander told me, ‘You have been made to sign a contract to join the battalion. You cannot do any other work here. You have been deceived,'” he stated after returning to his village of Munshiganj.
Miajee stated he was crushed with shovels, handcuffed and tortured in a cramped basement cell, and held there each time he refused to hold out an order or made a small mistake.
Because of language obstacles, for instance, “if they told us to go to the right and we went to the left, they would beat us severely,” he stated.
He was made to hold provides to the entrance and gather useless our bodies.
Meanwhile in Rahman’s unit, some weeks later, they had been instructed to evacuate a Russian soldier with a wounded leg. The males carried him, however no sooner had they left the place than they noticed a Ukrainian drone buzzing above. It fired at them. Then extra drones got here in a swarm.
Rahman couldn’t advance or return to the bunker. A Russian soldier guiding them stated land mines had been all over the place.
He was caught, and the Russian commander fled.
Rahman finally suffered a leg wound that despatched him to a hospital close to Moscow. He escaped from the medical heart and went on to the Bangladeshi embassy in Moscow, which ready a journey move for him to go away the nation.
Some months later, Rahman helped his brother-in-law Jehangir Alam, who additionally spoke with AP, run away utilizing the identical methodology – leaving the hospital after being wounded and interesting to the embassy.
Families in Lakshmipur maintain tightly to the paperwork of their lacking family members, believing that at some point, when offered to the fitting particular person, the papers may unlock the trail to their return.
The paperwork included images of Russian enterprise visas, army contracts and military canine tags. The papers had been despatched by the lacking males, who urged kinfolk to complain to recruiting brokers.
The contracts had been verified by two Russian teams serving to males evade or get out of army service. Maj. Vladimir Yaltsev, head of the Kostroma regional recruitment heart for contract army service, is listed as signing the contracts on behalf of the Russian army.
In their ultimate messages, these husbands, sons and fathers conveyed to kinfolk that they had been being forcibly taken to the entrance traces in Ukraine. After that, all communication ceased.
The households filed a grievance with police in Dhaka and traveled on three events to the capital to stress the federal government to research.
Salma Akdar has not heard from her husband since March 26. In their final dialog, Ajgar Hussein, 40, instructed her he had been bought to the Russian military. The couple has two sons, ages 7 and 11.
Hussein left in mid-December 2024, believing he was being supplied a job as a laundry attendant in Russia, his spouse stated. He had lately returned from Saudi Arabia and deliberate to cease working abroad for a spell, she defined. But believing Russia supplied alternatives to earn money, he left once more. He bought a few of his land to pay the agent’s charges.
For two weeks, he was in common contact. Then he instructed his spouse he was being taken to a military camp the place they had been skilled to make use of weapons and carry heavy hundreds as much as 80 kilograms (176 kilos). “Seeing all this, he cried a lot and told them, ‘We cannot do these things. We have never done this before,'” his spouse stated.
For two months after that, he was offline. He reappeared briefly to elucidate they had been being pressured to struggle within the conflict.
Russian commanders “told him that if he did not go, they would detain him, shoot him, stop providing food,” she stated.
Families within the village confronted the recruiting agent, demanding to know why their family members had been being skilled for conflict. The agent replied dismissively, saying that it was commonplace process in Russia, insisting that even launderers needed to bear comparable coaching.
Hussein left a ultimate audio be aware for this spouse: “Please pray for me.”
Mohammed Siraj’s 20-year-old son, Sajjad, departed believing he could be working as a chef in Russia. He wanted to help his unemployed father and chronically unwell mom.
Siraj wept as he described his son begging him to ask the agent why he was being made to bear army coaching. Sajjad fought together with his Russian commanders, insisting he had come to be a chef, to not struggle. They threatened him with jail if he didn’t comply. Then another person threatened to shoot him, his father recalled.
Sajjad referred to as the household and stated he was being taken to battle. “That is the last message from my son,” he stated.
In February, Siraj discovered by means of a Bangladeshi man serving with Sajjad that his son had been killed in a drone assault. Unable to bear telling his spouse the reality, Siraj assured her that their son was doing effectively. But phrase unfold by means of the village.
“You lied to me,” Siraj recalled her saying as she confronted him. Soon after, she died, calling out for her son in her ultimate moments.
In late 2024, households approached BRAC, a corporation that advocates for Bangladeshi staff, and stated they might not attain their kinfolk in Russia. That prompted the group to research. It uncovered at the very least 10 Bangladeshi males who’re nonetheless lacking after they had been had been lured to struggle.
“There are two or three layers of people who are profiting,” stated Shariful Islam, the pinnacle of BRAC’s migration program.
Bangladesh police investigators uncovered a trafficking ring in Russia after a Bangladeshi man returned in January 2025, alleging he had been deceived into combating. The police consider that comparable networks, operated by Bangladeshi intermediaries with connections to the Russian authorities, are answerable for facilitating the entry of Bangladeshis into Russia.
Another 9 individuals had been found to have been lured into combating based mostly on that police investigation, in line with investigator Mostafizur Rahman. The Associated Press reviewed the police report filed by one sufferer’s spouse, who stated he went to Russia anticipating to work in a chocolate manufacturing unit. A intermediary, a Bangladeshi with Russian citizenship who was residing in Moscow, has been charged.
It’s not clear what number of Bangladeshis had been lured to Russia. A Bangladeshi police investigator instructed AP that about 40 Bangladeshis could have misplaced their lives within the conflict.
Some go willingly, realizing they may find yourself on the entrance traces as a result of the cash is simply too good, in line with Rahman, the investigator.
In Lakshmipur, investigators discovered that the native agent has been funneling recruits to a central agent related to an organization referred to as SP Global. The firm didn’t reply to AP’s calls and emails. Investigators discovered it ceased operations in 2025.
Families of the lacking people stated they haven’t acquired any cash earned by their family members. Miajee too stated he was by no means paid.
“I don’t want money or anything else,” Akdar stated. “I just want my my children’s father back.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
