2024-02-28 04:30:46
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A man from Chennai, India, said he headed to Moscow thinking it was a safe job.
6 hours ago
Imran Qureshi, Neiaz Farooqi, BBC News
At least 12 Indians have been tricked into fighting for Russia’s war with Ukraine, including one who was killed in a missile attack. There are similar reports in India.
Hemal’s father told the BBC on Wednesday that he had spoken to Hemal three days ago. She was posted 20 to 22 kilometers into the country from the Ukrainian border, and when her cell phone was connected, she called every few days.
The families of the other Indians are upset and are suing the federal government to send them home.
The men, aged between 22 and 31, were hired as “helpers at a Russian military facility,” according to their families. He was then reportedly sent to the battlefield under the pretext of “training.”
Indian sources in Russia say dozens of Indians have joined the Russian military so far. However, a Russian Defense Ministry official told The Hindu that nearly 100 people were actually hired last year. The BBC has contacted the Russian embassy in Delhi for an interview, but has yet to receive a response.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has confirmed that “some Indian nationals have joined the Russian military in support roles.”
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The man from Uttar Pradesh said he was hired through social media.
“In all such cases brought to the Indian Embassy in Moscow, we are strongly approaching the Russian authorities. In cases brought to the Ministry of External Affairs, we are approaching the Russian Embassy in New Delhi,” the ministry said in a statement. As a result, several Indians have already been discharged.”
The ministry also urged “all Indian citizens to exercise caution and stay away from this conflict.”
Some of the men have described in videos how they were tricked by agents into being sent to war, leaving their families in shock. The entire family is poor and works as a tuk-tuk driver, a tea vendor, and a wheelbarrow peddler.
The men and their families claim they were promised a Russian passport following a few months of military service, and were asked to pay 300,000 rupees (regarding 5,500,000 yen). The agents are said to attract people from India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Nepal and Sri Lanka, and charge up to 1.2 million rupees.
Some relatives interviewed by the BBC said the men were lured in with promises of high salaries but had no idea what they were getting into. The men, who are still in Russia, have not been identified for security reasons.
A father who sells tea and eggs from a pushcart in Karnataka said, “My 28-year-old son was working at a packaging company in Dubai. He and three of his friends watched a video of a broker in Russia. They were offered jobs and promised a salary of 90,000 to 100,000 rupees. Their income at the time was around 35,000 to 40,000 rupees. They all borrowed money and paid 300,000 rupees to an agent. Please help me bring my son back,” she told BBC Hindi, crying over the phone.
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One Indian man said he was told by an agent that he was working as a security guard.
People from Telangana, Gujarat, Kashmir, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh were also allegedly duped. Only one person fled Moscow and returned home.
“I was brought here by (Indian-run YouTube channel) BabaVlog, and I was paid 150,000 yen (in a month),” the man from Uttar Pradesh said in a video shot in a safe location in Moscow at the end of January. “I was promised a salary of Rs. 2,000. I had not heard that I would be conscripted into the army,” he said. The BBC contacted the channel but received no response.
Those who claim to have been deceived have no combat experience. The man from Uttar Pradesh, who appeared in the video in military uniform, said he was recruited on social media.
“We signed a contract in Russian in Moscow, and before we knew it, we were soldiers being sent to war. We were fooled.” The man said that he and two other Indians were injured in the fighting. he explained, gesturing with his apparently injured right hand.
“Please let us out of here, or we will be sent to the front lines. There will be shelling, and drones will fall everywhere. We have zero experience in war. It is the fault of the intermediaries. And I’m in this situation.”
A man from Kashmir said by telephone from the Russia-Ukraine border area that he was stranded in Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, along with a fellow Indian and nine others from Nepal and Cuba. The man reportedly injured his leg during training.
“My commander kept saying, shoot with your right hand, shoot with your left, shoot up, shoot down.” The man looked back.
Image courtesy of Getty Images
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The war in Ukraine is currently at a stalemate.
“I had never even touched a gun before. It was so cold that I shot myself in the leg while holding the gun in my left hand.”
One of the men’s siblings said he did not know whether the Indians were “in Wagner’s militia or in the Russian army.” “They are regarding 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. They have been promised Russian citizenship in three months.”
The only person who was spared from training or being sent to the battlefield was Sheikh Mohammad Tahir, 24, from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He returned last week and said, “I was a worker at a car battery factory here.”
These issues attracted attention when Asaduddin Owaisi, a member of parliament from the city of Hyderabad, raised them. Owaisi wrote to the Ministry of External Affairs on January 23, seeking government intervention to bring the men home.
Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of India’s main opposition party, the Nationalist Congress Party, claimed that around 100 Indians have been “recruited into the Russian military as helpers” over the past year.
“Shockingly, some of these workers are forced to fight alongside Russian forces on the Russia-Ukraine border. Some workers say their passports and documents have been confiscated and they are trapped and unable to return home.”
When war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, some reports said that several Indians had volunteered to join the Ukrainian army. However, this is the first time that there have been reports of Indian nationals serving in combat roles on the Russian side.
The BBC spoke to an Indian man in Russia who once served near the Ukrainian border but is no longer in the military. He said that from his own experience, the Russian military was transparent and contracts were available for viewing online. However, he added, those who did not speak Russian were being fooled by brokers.
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