Prosecuting Russia’s Foreign Mercenaries
Fighters have been recruited from as far afield as South East Asia, Africa and North Korea, but their legal status remains ambiguous.
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Faced with the growing problem of replenishing the ranks of its army as the invasion continues, Russia has turned to recruiting foreign nationals to fight in Ukraine.
Citizens from South East Asia and Africa have been captured by the Ukrainian armed forces, with North Koreans and Chinese nationals also spotted on the front lines. In 2025, Russia officially established a “foreign legion” under its Ministry of Defence.
The legal status of these combatants, however, remains ambiguous.
Russian soldiers fightingin Ukraine have the legal status of combatants, which grants them specific rights and protections stipulated by the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
“Combatants have a privilege: the right to kill enemy combatants without risk of criminal prosecution and, if captured, the right to be treated as a prisoner of war,” said Danylo Zhydkov, a legal assistant at Grain Law Firm.
Foreign mercenaries, on the other hand, have a special status under international law as participants in an armed conflict.
While a combatant cannot be prosecuted for the mere act of participating in hostilities – as they are acting on behalf of their country’s military – a mercenary is afforded no such privilege. They can be prosecuted, which is precisely what the Ukrainian law enforcement system is doing.
Nine criminal cases related to mercenarism are currently under investigation, with two convictions secured so far.
One of the most high profile private military companies (PMC) was the Wagner group. Whilst it was active in Russia, its leadership recruited foreigners, particularly from African regions where the group also operated.
Under the command of Yevgeny Prigozhin, these mercenaries signed contracts directly with the PMC. For this reason, they could not be legally considered combatants, as the primary characteristic of a combatant is membership in a state’s armed forces. At the time, private military companies in Russia were not formally part of the Ministry of Defence structure. Therefore, anyone who contracted directly with a PMC was not affiliated with the Russian armed forces.
As an example, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine cites the case of Andrey Gerilovich, a Wagner mercenary and Belarussian citizen who was convicted in Ukraine for mercenarism under Article 447 of the criminal code.
A court found that Gerilovich had been recruited by the Wagner PMC and trained at its camp in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai from July 11 to July 21, 2022. After signing a contract with the mercenary group, he fought in the Bakhmut district of Donetsk Oblast, near the settlements of Kodema, Semyhiria, Otradivka and Kurdiumivka.
Gerilovich was sentenced to nine years in prison and is serving his term in Ukraine.
Ukrainian courts have handled similar cases, including that of Kazakh citizen Shyngys Seipiyev, who was found to have “voluntarily agreed to and subsequently signed a contract to serve with the Wagner PMC in Tyumen in October 2022” according to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Seipiyev was later deployed to Ukraine, where he was captured on December 30 in the village of Yakovlivka, Bakhmut district. He was subsequently also sentenced to nine years.
Following Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash, the Russian leadership has reassessed its approach to PMCs, subordinating them more directly to the Ministry of Defence. This means that PMC fighters are now effectively signing contracts with the Russian armed forces.
“A hypothetical African, Nepalese or North Korean citizen can be considered a combatant, provided they are a member of the Russian Federation’s armed forces,” Zhydkov said. “Membership in the Russian armed forces is established, in particular, by signing a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence. It’s also worth noting that these foreign nationals are usually issued Russian passports, as evidenced by photographs of North Korean prisoners of war captured in the Kursk region.”
To circumvent their status as foreign nationals and officially designate them as combatants, the Russian leadership recruits them into the armed forces via PMCs and has also simplified the process for obtaining citizenship.
“From the very beginning of the war, with presidential decrees No. 690 of September 30, 2022 and later No 10 of January 4, 2024 the Russian president simplified the conditions for granting citizenship to foreign nationals who sign a contract to serve with the Russian armed forces during the so-called special military operation,” Zhydkov explained.
Russia is also exploiting the ambiguity in the international legal status of mercenaries, as the definition is not precise enough to classify an individual as a mercenary with absolute certainty. This manipulation is evident by North Korean fighters, who have been granted Russian citizenship despite not even speaking the language.
Recruited and Exploited
When captured, foreign citizens hope for extradition to their home countries, but their status also allows Ukraine to include them in prisoner exchanges.
“I came to Russia on a tourist visa. I wanted to work,” said A, from Somalia. “Back home, I worked at a small factory, but I wasn’t making enough money. So I went to Moscow and saw a military recruitment ad. I thought they would hire me for a job, but I never thought I’d end up on the front line.”
A was speaking at a press conference organised by the Ukrainian Coordinating Centre for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. It is common practice in Ukraine to show interviews with Russian POWs in the media, but IWPR is not identifying the individual prisoners.
A said that he was offered a position as a guard at a military facility for 2,000 US dollars a month, a huge sum of money compared to what he could earn back home.
Russia is a frequent destination for migrant workers. Foreigners from Africa and other developing nations are often promised a full support package, including hotel accommodation, assistance with all necessary documents and travel expenses.
“They are recruited under the guise of work,” said Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. “Those already in Russia are often deceived and told they will be doing security work. However, we cannot always verify the credibility of their claims.”
Most captured foreigners report that they were misled during recruitment, having been promised non-combat roles. After a few weeks of training, during which they are taught basic weapons handling and how to take cover from enemy drones, they are sentto the front line.
F, recruited from Sri Lanka, told journalists that he had been offered a monthly salary of 1,000 USD for a role that he was assured would be purely supportive. Instead, he was taken to Rostov for training and then sent to occupied Donetsk.
“For the first month, I stayed put, living in Ukrainian houses. I chopped wood for heating and to boil water, and I distributed food, canned goods and water to the bases. After a month, my commander ordered a fellow Sri Lankan to the front line. He refused, saying he had no experience and was afraid. As punishment, they confiscated his phone, beat him and withheld food for three days. I witnessed it myself.”
The toll on these foreign recruits can be severe. According to the General Staff of Ukraine, troops from North Korea were brought into the war to compensate for a shortage of Russia’s own forces. The North Koreans were used to storm Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region in the late summer of 2024; in just a few days, approximately 4,000 of them were killed.
