A United States (US) Bill published in May says Russia is recruiting Africans under false pretences, stripping them of their freedom, and forcing them into its war against Ukraine. It has reached into the continent through recruitment networks, false promises, alleged kidnapping, and then uses these Africans in some of the most dangerous parts of the battlefield.

The Bill, titled “Countering Russia’s Forced Recruitment and Kidnapping in Africa Act”, was introduced in the House of Representatives on 7 May 2026.

The Bill states that Russia’s “illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine has strained the Russian military”, creating “a need for additional personnel” and leading to “the deceptive and coerced recruitment of Africans”.

The Bill says “Russian-backed entities are working to recruit civilian and military personnel across the African continent” to fight in Ukraine.

According to the Bill, Ukraine has reported, “More than 1 400 citizens from 36 countries across Africa are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.”

It says Africans sent to the conflict are often forced into “the most dangerous combat roles in the most dangerous areas” because Russians believe “their lives are less valuable”.

The Bill says videos from the conflict show “African recruits with landmines strapped to their chest” and ordered by Russian soldiers “to fight or die”. It adds that Africans are regularly called “expendable” and “cannon fodder” by Russians in conflict areas.

The Bill makes explicit reference to Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former president Jacob Zuma and a former uMkhonto weSizwe Party MP. It says she “has been accused in multiple lawsuits of luring 17 South Africans and two Botswanan men to Russia” by telling them they would be trained as bodyguards for her father’s party or attend a personal development course.

The Bill says African victims are “regularly misled under false pretenses”. Once they arrive in Russia, “their clothes and passports are often burned, and their phones are taken away”.

It says contracts are often switched for documents written in Russian “with the express intent of exploiting the victim for their service or labour”.

The same pattern appears elsewhere in Africa. Some victims believed they were travelling to Moscow for “advanced military training” but were instead sent to fight on Ukraine’s frontlines.

In Kenya, more than 20 men were rescued from a suspected trafficking ring after being promised jobs in Russia.

The Bill says Russia’s recruitment also extends from the battlefield to weapons production. African women have been lured to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, a major industrial zone in central Russia that has become a centre for drone production for the war in Ukraine.

According to the Bill, the recruitment scheme targets women aged between 18 and 22 with promises of professional training in logistics, catering, and hospitality. Instead, the Bill says, “these women are subject to hazardous factory condition and used to build drones”. By some estimates cited in the Bill, “More than 1 000 women have been recruited from across Africa to work in Alabuga’s weapons factories.”

The picture drawn by the Bill is of a war machine short of men and willing to treat Africans as disposable labour for the battlefield and the weapons factory. Congress says the “abduction and forced recruitment of African nationals to support the Russian war machine in Ukraine likely constitutes human rights violations”.

Its wider warning is that African citizens are being drawn into a foreign war by deception, coercion, and by local collaborators, who may have “knowingly participated in or benefited from these recruitment operations at the expense of their citizens”.