‘Treated like dogs’: Russia recruiting thousands of Nepali men to fight in war on Ukraine
Around 2,000 Nepali men have been recruited by Russia to fight in its war against Ukraine, Sky News understands.
Driven by poverty, many of the Nepali mercenaries are now desperate to return.
Ganesh, 35, is one of the few recruits lucky enough to have made it home. He spent four and a half months fighting in Donetsk and he says Nepalis were “treated like dogs”.
“It was very frightening. It wasn’t man to man, bullet to bullet. We were attacked by drones and it was terrifying,” he said.
We spoke to him in Kathmandu as he prayed at a temple, relieved but traumatised by his experience on the frontline.
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Ganesh only escaped the Russian military on his third attempt
He says soldiers were taken to Avangard training centre, a military academy outside of Moscow, where they were for two weeks.
Ganesh served 10 years in the Indian army, but many others alongside him were young and inexperienced. He describes some as never having held a gun before.
‘Thrown into conflict with little support’
After training, he says there was a sharp shift in the way foreign mercenaries were treated: they were suddenly thrown into conflict with very little support.
“For the first two weeks of training, life was good. But once we were sent to Ukraine, we didn’t have enough food and were beaten by the Russians. It was really bad.”
Nepali men, Ganesh claims, were cannon fodder in their war. “The original Russian soldiers were behind us. On the frontline it was mercenaries.”
He describes a clear pecking order with Russian criminals, Nepalis and Indians ahead of Kremlin troops.
Ganesh saw three Nepali men killed on the battlefield, but has heard of many, many more casualties.
‘Once we were sent to Ukraine, we didn’t have enough food and were beaten by the Russians’
Soldiers told Russia was ‘full of opportunities’
He says he was struggling to find work and when he went to an agent to see if he could work in Luxembourg, the agent suggested he should go to Russia instead because it was “full of opportunities”.
Ganesh then had to take out a loan and pay him one million Nepali Rupees (nearly £6,000) to travel from Moscow via Dubai on a tourist visa.
The average monthly Nepali salary is the equivalent of less than £150. But he was told by the agent he could earn about £1,675 a month if he joined the Kremlin’s campaign.
Once in Russia he then had to pay another agent nearly £800 just to be taken to the training camp.
Ganesh said they were attacked by drones
The figure of 2,000 men recruited into the Russian army is based on the testimony of returning soldiers, as well as Russian immigration data. It has also been cross-referenced with estimates provided by campaigners supporting the families of those still serving or dead.
Many Nepalis have described being given student or tourist visas to get to Russia and the Nepali government is so concerned, that it has taken action.
Nepal has asked for soldiers to be repatriated
It was already illegal for Nepalis to fight for foreign militaries, including Russia’s. But in January this year, the government banned its citizens from travelling to Russia or Ukraine for work and has asked Moscow to repatriate all Nepalis who were recruited.
Superintendent Nawaraj Adhikari told Sky News the police are cracking down on agents – the men who help sort the documents required to cross into Russia and illegally fight its war.
“Police have already arrested 22 suspects,” he said. “It’s a big, serious problem.”
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Superintendent Nawaraj Adhikari
The relatives of more than 150 Nepali mercenaries have filed requests appealing to the consular department after losing contact with their relatives. And yet, men desperate to escape poverty, continue to make the perilous journey to the battlefield.
‘It’s not like it looks on TikTok’
Many say they were wooed by watching TikTok videos of happy-looking recruits training in Russia. But Ganesh is urging anyone considering it not to sign up.
“I would tell them not to go. On TikTok you see them with fancy uniforms with fancy guns. But it’s nothing like that.”
TikTok videos showing Nepali men in the Russian army
Getting out of the war is proving treacherous. Ganesh said he tried to flee with six other Nepali men, but was caught and badly beaten by Russian soldiers.
He tried a second time to use an agent. “There was a Nepali guy, I contacted him and he said to send me 200,000 rubles (£1,700).
“I did that, then ran away from the barracks and looked around for the taxi he was meant to send but it wasn’t there. Then he went out of contact.”
Ganesh said many of his fellow Nepalis had tried the same. “I have seen 10 to 15 Nepalis who were wandering around, out of their minds, cheated by agents.”
He eventually fled again on foot, sleeping in old buildings, spending a week in the forest before finally surrendering to the Russian police in Donetsk.
“I realised I could not cross the border and that I wouldn’t survive if I stayed here. I gave myself up and went to the police. I was detained for one-and-a-half months and then they sent me back to Nepal.”
Kritu Bhandari, a Kathmandu-based politician and social campaigner, has become the leader of a group of family members of Nepali mercenaries who are calling for their return from Russia.
She says in recent weeks about 700 families have asked her for help in bringing their relatives home. She says she is also aware of 260 mercenaries who are out of contact with their loved ones.
Kathmandu
The Nepali government told Sky News 246 of its citizens are fighting for the Russian army currently and that at least 21 have been killed. But lawmakers and human rights’ campaigners in Nepal say those official estimates vastly underestimate the real numbers.
According to the Nepali Foreign Ministry, Russian authorities have reportedly agreed to provide compensation to the victims’ families and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has assured his Nepali counterpart that he will address their concerns.
But Moscow has said nothing yet about stopping the recruitment of Nepalis or repatriating the dead. Sky News asked the Russian Ministry of Defence and the embassy in Nepal to comment on Ganesh’s allegations, and to provide the number of Nepali mercenaries in its armed forces. Neither have yet responded.
What is clear is that Nepal is caught in a conflict it has no stake in, driven by many who were trying to escape poverty.
They now look increasingly exposed with no guarantees of a safe return.
Police in Amsterdam have moved in to end a pro-Palestinian protest after demonstrators occupied university buildings.
Footage from the Dutch capital showed a line of police in riot gear holding back demonstrators, some of whom could be seen making peace signs with their hands while others held signs.
Students could be heard chanting: “We are peaceful, what are you?” and “shame on you” in local media footage.
Earlier, a protest group said it had occupied university buildings in Amsterdam as well as in the cities of Groningen and Eindhoven.
In a post on social media site X, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.
Police officers and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam
A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam said protesters had occupied what is known as the ABC building, causing some “destruction”.
It estimated that around a thousand students and employees had taken part in a “national walkout” during which they walked out of a lecture hall at 11 o’clock and gathered on the Roeterseiland campus.
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The university said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.
Students in the US and Europe have been holding mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.
Dutch students have been protesting since last Monday and had previously clashed with police as they used railings and furniture to build barricades in the city.
While in the UK, students at Cambridge and Oxford have set up encampments outside King’s College the Pitt Rivers Museum respectively.
Pic: Ramon van Flymen/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Kendall Gardner, a Jewish student at Oxford University, told Sky News last week that she was “really inspired by the events that have been happening across the world”.
“The US started a global chain of student activism for Palestine,” she said.
“We have six demands for this protest – the top line is to demand closure of all university-wide financial assets that benefit Israel.
World
Georgia: ‘We will not give up’ – protesters and police in tense standoff on streets of Tbilisi
Tens of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in Tbilisi – protesting against a proposed law threatening press and civic freedoms.
The “foreign agents” bill has sparked a political crisis amid concerns it is modelled on laws used by Vladimir Putin to crack down on the media in Russia – and if passed, would make it harder for Georgia to join the EU.
Sky’s international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn is in Tbilisi:
Pic: Reuters
The Georgian security forces moved in shortly after dawn this morning. Phalanxes of masked men sweeping through streets and parks outside parliament.
They kettled protesters with force. We were caught in the crush as they squeezed the crowd.
A woman screamed as she was pinned to a post by the press of people.
Crowds had ringed the parliament building all night – intent on stopping MPs from voting on laws that demonstrators believe put Georgia on the path to dictatorship, and back in the embrace of Moscow.
“They want to drag us back to autocracy, to the country they occupied us for too many years,” one protester told Sky News.
Pic: Reuters
The police succeeded in clearing one entrance to parliament.
Flank after flank of interior ministry security forces backed by helmeted riot police and water cannon trucks are now in a tense standoff with a multi-coloured sea of protesters on the corner of the parliament building.
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Why are Georgians protesting over ‘Russian law’?
The blue and green colours of Ukraine and the European Union jostle with the reds and white of Georgia’s national colours.
The protesters have been peaceful, but the police have not. They have unleashed snatch squads barrelling into the crowd.
Demonstrators in Tbilisi
Sky News witnessed masked security forces seizing one man and raining blows on his unprotected head.
The protesters have failed in their effort to cut off parliament from MPs, but their numbers are swelling.
“We will not give up,” one woman told us.
“We cannot allow them to take our freedom.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The government was forced to shelve the law last year in the face of bitter opposition but the Georgian Dream ruling party, regarded by many as pro-Russian, is determined to see it passed.
Russia’s defence minister is set to be replaced, more than two years into the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed replacing his long-time ally, Sergei Shoigu, with civilian and former deputy prime minister Andrei Belousov, who specialises in economics.
Mr Shoigu, who has served as defence minister since 2012, will take up a role as head of the national security council and have responsibilities for the military-industrial complex, the Kremlin said.
Ukraine war latest: Putin reshuffle points to ‘serious instability’
In his new role, Mr Shoigu will replace Nikolai Patrushev, whose new job will be announced soon, according to the Kremlin.
Mr Putin’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov said the president decided the ministry of defence should be headed by a civilian to be “open to innovation and advanced ideas”.
The shuffle could also be seen as an attempt by Mr Putin to scrutinise defence spending after a Shoigu ally, deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov, was accused by state prosecutors of taking a bribe.
But the changes make sense, Mr Peskov claims, because Russia is approaching a situation like the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, when the military and law enforcement authorities accounted for 7.4% of spending.
Andrei Belousov. Pic: Reuters
Former MI6 intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who ran the Russia desk between 2006 and 2009, told Sky News he takes Mr Peskov’s words “with a pinch of salt”.
“It seems to me that probably the reason he’s chosen Belousov is because he’s not really any kind of player in the system or any sort of threat to Putin,” he added.
He also said Mr Patrushev’s appointment may hint at instability “right underneath him in the top leadership”.
“It was clear to most of us Russia-watchers for some time that Patrushev was lining up his son, Dmitry, who’s the current agriculture minister, to be Putin’s successor as president,” he said.
“And there have been some indications that there’s been some serious instability at the top in Russia in recent months… so I think that this really is a very significant move by Putin.”
Sergei Shoigu. Pic: Reuters
Commenting on Mr Shoigu’s removal, the UK’s defence minister Grant Shapps said he leaves with a “disastrous legacy”.
“Sergei Shoigu has overseen over 355,000 casualties among his own soldiers and mass civilian suffering with an illegal campaign in Ukraine,” he said.
“Russia needs a defence minister who would undo that disastrous legacy and end the invasion – but all they’ll get is another of Putin’s puppets.”
Parliament’s approval of the new appointments are all but guaranteed, as there is virtually no opposition.
By law, the government in Russia had to resign just before Mr Putin was sworn in as president for another six-year term on Tuesday.
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Analysts have said he is looking to project an image of stability and satisfaction with his team’s progress, with Mikhail Mishustin remaining in post as prime minister on Friday.
As he continues to confirm his top team, Mr Putin has also proposed Sergei Lavrov remain as foreign minister.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, will remain in his position as well.
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