Francis’s legs are trembling with fear as he tries desperately to avoid eye contact with the Russian soldier who is strapping the landmine to his chest.
He is being ‘armed’ for use as a human bomb and about to be sent to blow up a Ukrainian bunker. There is no escape.
The African mercenary, recruited to take part in Russia’s barbaric war against Ukraine, is being held at gunpoint by one of the soldiers he is supposed to be fighting alongside.
‘He’s about to run – gonna be hopping through the woods,’ the Russian soldier boasts as he films a petrified Francis.
‘Go on, move,’ he barks while pointing his rifle at the African who slowly moves forward while pleading for his life and screaming ‘No!’
‘What the f*** are you scared of? Don’t s*** yourself,’ the Russian mocks in the social media clip that has recently emerged and drawn global condemnation. Francis, with a device thought to be a powerful anti-tank TM-62 mine strapped to him, is subject to horrific racial abuse inside the Russian trench.
His blood runs cold as he is told he is being used as a ‘can opener’ and to detonate the mine when he reaches the bunker. If he refuses to carry out the suicide mission he will be executed in the Russian trench – shot dead by soldiers who see him and other foreign fighters as expendable.
Online footage shows Francis with the landmine strapped to him
Foremost among the recruiting sergeants is Polina Alexandrovna Azarnykh, whose appearance and demeanour could not be more different from the khaki-clad figure you might expect
What happened to Francis is unknown, though the grim fates of many untrained foreign mercenaries used by Russia to fuel its ‘meat grinder’ assaults on Ukrainian positions suggest he did not survive.
He is one of more than 23,000 foreigners hailing from 131 countries – including North Korea, Cuba and India – who have been fed into Russia’s war machine since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
They all signed up to become cannon fodder through a network of Russian recruiters who use a mix of social media, Telegram and adverts targeted at young men across the globe who are desperate to escape poverty.
Foremost among those recruiting sergeants is Polina Alexandrovna Azarnykh – whose appearance and demeanour could not be more different from the khaki-clad figure you might expect.
Azarnykh is a blonde, fashion-conscious, attractive woman who wears designer dresses and high heels, and smiles for the camera as she posts upbeat video messages promising potential recruits riches beyond their dreams in return for their signing one-year contracts for Russian military service.
A former teacher aged 40, she appears to lead a glamorous lifestyle, travelling around Russia in sunglasses and fur hats in a luxury car and posting her alluring messages to men in countries from Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Morocco to Iraq, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
Her exploits were revealed by the Egyptian news website Masrawy last October after it was contacted by the loved ones of an Egyptian student who travelled to Russia to earn money but who disappeared and turned out to have been killed in battle soon afterwards.
The website’s revelations were given a new, high-profile airing this month by the BBC Eye investigation programme which found 12 families of foreigners fighting for Russia who claimed their sons had been recruited by her and fed into the meat grinder.
More than 23,000 foreigners hailing from 131 countries have been fed into Russia’s war machine since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022
Azarnykh posts upbeat video messages promising potential recruits riches beyond their dreams in return for their signing one-year contracts for Russian military service
It emerges that Azarnykh, from Voronezh, used to run a company called InterEdu which helped Arab students obtain study visas. In November 2022, however, nine months after the Ukraine invasion, she was forced to shut it down as interest from foreign students in travelling to Russia dried up.
So she reinvented herself as a recruiting sergeant, taking advantage of the market in young foreign men she was so familiar with. Soon she was earning millions signing up soldiers to fight for her country.
Azarnykh uses the messaging service Telegram to entice the impoverished men, offering Russian citizenship, signing off bonuses of £7,000, monthly salaries of £2,000 and promising non-combat roles, as well as free plots of land and education.
Her recruitment channel now has 21,000 subscribers, mainly Arabs and Africans. The channel’s profile picture is of President Putin and the description of it reads: ‘A channel to support the Russian Federation Army in the military operations zone.’
Her page is presented as an inclusive space for men of all nationalities fighting for Russia, sharing motivational messages that portray the war in Ukraine as a positive experience.
In addition to her glamour shots, Azarnykh poses alongside the men on the battlefield – a mentor guiding her students. ‘Every one of my soldiers is a source of pride,’ she tells the Telegram group. ‘I’m proud of you, guys.’
She shares videos of the foreign mercenaries dancing, sharing jokes and smiling on the battlefield. ‘You are examples of courage and strength. You once believed in me and went to defend Russia,’ she declares. ‘Every soldier must defend Russia’s new homeland with pride and steadfastness, because Russia is becoming a new home for each and every one of them! Glory to Russia.’
What she does not convey on her channel is the brutal reality – a reality light years away from that she describes, the one that saw Francis strapped to a bomb, facing racial abuse and being forced to blow himself up at the command of his Russian colleagues. To reel in her potential recruits, she relies on Arabic speaking assistants who reach out to their fellow countrymen.
Those who are interested then contact her about the one-year ‘volunteer army contract’. The Russian is quick to make clear that she will receive at least £6,000 in commission to facilitate it. ‘After signing, the volunteer receives an initial payment of 800,000 rubles or $8,200,’ she told a contact in a message seen by the Daily Mail.
‘I receive 50 per cent of this amount and 10 per cent of the monthly salary for the entire duration of the contract with the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. The monthly salary starts at a minimum of 210,000 rubles (£2,015), and after six months, your brother will receive a Russian passport.’
Once the terms are agreed, Azarnykh sends over two electronic contracts, written in both Russian and Arabic, for the new soldier to sign.
It states that she has the right to use their images in military uniforms for promotional purposes, that they must not share any details about her to anyone and warns that any breach of contract will result in an immediate £9,500 fine. After receiving back the documents, she organises flights and visas for the recruits who then arrive in Moscow where they are greeted by her representatives.
This is where the nightmare begins. The men, often without any military background or experience with weapons, are rushed to a training facility for a brief tutorial before being sent straight to the frontline.
Not surprisingly, contact with their loved ones back home quickly ceases and their families frantically search for their whereabouts but there’s no response from the Russian authorities.
Walid Othman had travelled to Russia to study with the hope of building a better life for his family, but was soon recruited into the army by Azarnykh after being lured with promises of citizenship and financial rewards.
The 21-year-old Egyptian died just 40 days later in a mine explosion. His friend Marwan was informed of his death and sent a picture of his mutilated body.
Fellow Egyptian Saeed Ramadan had similar dreams while studying at a university in Kaliningrad. However, the 22-year-old from Alexandria, who arrived in Russia as a student in the summer of 2021, fell for the propaganda Azarnykh was spouting.
Azarnykh appears to lead a glamorous lifestyle, travelling around Russia in sunglasses and fur hats in a luxury car and posting her alluring messages to men in countries from Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Morocco to Iraq, Ivory Coast and Nigeria
She also posts pictures of herself posing on the battlefield, a mentor guiding her students
Azarnykh’s recruitment channel now has 21,000 subscribers, mainly Arabs and Africans
He agreed to join the Russian military and underwent brief training before he was deployed to the fiercely contested Donetsk region in early 2024.
One night, Saeed was badly hurt in a Ukrainian drone strike on the Russian base which killed most of his fellow soldiers.
Wounded in the leg, he dragged himself through the thick forest for hours before he finally found his battalion’s headquarters and was treated in hospital where he told his friend what had happened. But Saeed was only there for three days before he was forced back to the frontline.
His loved ones have not heard from him since.
Omar, a Syrian construction worker, was also lured into battle by Azarnykh after she promised a huge salary, Russian passport and non-combat role.
But the 26-year-old realised this was all a lie when he was sent to the frontline after just ten days. He tried to refuse to take part in the war but his Russian commanders threatened to murder him or put him in jail and he has been fighting for more than a year.
Azarnykh appears to have expanded her recruitment drive and started other channels having already earned at least £2million
Worse, he is now trapped in Russia after Azarnykh filmed herself burning his passport because he refused to pay her the commission she is owed. ‘We were tricked… this woman is a con artist and a liar,’ Omar told the BBC.
‘We’re 100 per cent going to die here. A lot of injuries, a lot of explosions, a lot of shelling. If you don’t die from the explosion, you’ll die from the debris landing on you. Dead bodies everywhere… I’ve stepped on dead bodies, God forgive me. If someone dies, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They put him in a rubbish bag and threw him next to a tree.’
His one-year ‘voluntary military contract’ was automatically extended against his will under a 2022 Russian presidential decree that allows the military to prolong contracts until the war ends.
Azarnykh, who is accused of facilitating 500 foreign military contracts, is cold in her response to the recruits who say she lied to them. ‘You all understood well that you were going to war,’ she said in a video from October 2024.
‘You thought that you could get a Russian passport, do nothing and live in a five-star hotel? Nothing happens for free.’
And she is said to have threatened grieving families who have criticised her or the Russian army.
In fact, Azarnykh appears to have expanded her recruitment drive and started other channels having already earned at least £2million. She shows off her newfound wealth on social media, posing with expensive watches, diamond rings and giving glimpses of her international adventures.
Horrifyingly, she represents just the tip of the iceberg in a shadowy network of hundreds of informal recruiters sending foreign fighters to risk their lives for Russia.
I was one of the first journalists to expose how Russia preys on men from the world’s poorest nations to serve as frontline fodder. Having now met hundreds of these fighters who have been captured by Russia’s enemy and taken to a prisoner of war camp in Lviv, Ukraine, last month, I discovered their stories are strikingly similar.
Many claim they were tricked into joining the Russian military after signing contracts for well-paid civilian work, while others say they were forced into fighting under threat of death or imprisonment.
A rare few have been brave enough to admit they enlisted in order to earn sums they could only dream of in their home countries. And from brutal experience, all now understand the terrifying truth about Russia’s contempt for the foreigners it recruits.
Yet it is stepping up that recruitment drive as it continues to lose soldiers at a bewildering rate. The total number of Russian dead and wounded in the war is 1.1 million with, according to Nato, 25,000 killed last month alone.
According to Vitalii Matvienko of Ukraine’s I Want To Live project, which encourages Russian fighters to surrender, Putin has orchestrated a ‘highly extensive and carefully structured recruitment network’.
He adds: ‘Their main task is to legally transport men to Russia. Once in Russia, far from home, they become more vulnerable both to pressure and threats. Russia approaches recruitment of foreigners in a creative manner. Prisoners of war have described different ways in which they learned about the opportunity to travel to Russia, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and banner advertisements on websites.’
Mr Matvienko warns foreigners not to sign up to Putin’s deadly war, no matter how enticing the financial incentive. ‘The Russian command does not value the lives of its own servicemen – and it certainly will not value foreign mercenaries,’ he said.
The horrific video of Francis, in abject terror as he is forced to become a ‘can opener’, is gruesome proof of the veracity of his claim.
Walid Othman, Saeed Ramadan and Omar are all pseudonyms used to protect the men and their families, who fear reprisals from Russia.
