Kyiv has identified more than 18,000 foreign nationals attached to the Russian Armed Forces in its nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine.
Brig. Gen. Dmytro Usov, secretary of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said during the Crimea Global conference that the figures include both those who have fought and those still fighting for Moscow.
The recruits come from 128 countries and unrecognized territories, with approximately 3,388 killed during the conflict.
Usov noted that the sourced fighters are part of Moscow’s broader strategy launched in 2023 to build a global recruitment network to compensate for heavy battlefield losses.
“The main motive for most of these mercenaries is financial gain,” he said, adding that many were deceived or coerced into service.
Contracts initially numbered in the hundreds per month, rising to thousands.
Slowed Recruitment
During the meeting, Usov verified that the coordinated efforts between Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters, Defense Intelligence, Foreign Ministry, and lawmakers have recently slowed Russia’s foreign enlistment.
He cited Nepal as an example of the impact, which had nearly 1,000 citizens signing contracts with the Russian military from 2023 to 2024, a figure that had dropped to just one person by October 2025.
POW Trade Status
Meanwhile, Usov said that Russia still shows little interest in exchanging for foreign prisoners of war, despite Ukraine introducing its formal prisoner-exchange system early in the 2022 invasion.
“Russia has not yet asked for a single foreign citizen, except for citizens of North Korea, for an exchange,” he said.
“At the same time, the Coordination Headquarters is working and doing everything necessary to fulfill the instructions of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky — to return all our military and civilians from Russian prisons and torture chambers as soon as possible.”
Currently, Ukraine offers foreign fighters the option to voluntarily surrender through its “I Want to Live” program, which Usov described as “virtually the only chance to save their lives” for those used as expendable forces.
Kyiv holds prisoners from 37 countries who served on Russia’s side as of date.
