The recruitment of foreign citizens from Russia to participate in the war in Ukraine "amounts to human trafficking", said "Amnesty International", quoted by DPA.
"Many of the recruits were promised high salaries and bonuses upon joining the service, which were not paid. While some received part of the money before being captured, many others reported not receiving any funds at all", the human rights organization said.
"In addition to financial remuneration, all those interviewed cited the promised opportunity to obtain Russian citizenship as a particular incentive".
According to "Amnesty" Russian recruiters used coercion, deception and deception to persuade foreigners to join the Russian army.
"The scale of the exploitation and coercion to which these people were subjected led us to conclude that in many cases this constituted human trafficking, as defined in the UN Palermo Protocol," said Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General of "Amnesty International".
"Amnesty" reported that it interviewed more than a dozen foreign nationals, including people from Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Somalia and South Africa, during six visits to two Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camps between 2024 and 2026.
PoWs from Brazil and Sri Lanka told Amnesty that after signing contracts, their passports and mobile phones were taken away.
They also said that the contracts were written only in Russian and that no one spoke English. According to the report, the recruits received only inadequate basic military training, which lasted about two weeks.
"Amnesty" specifies that it was unable to conduct investigations on the territory of Russia, where the organization has been banned since May 2025.