Putin's foreign fighters

0:00Before we start, a warning that this episode contains strong language and scenes that you may find upsetting.

0:10It's March 2024. A 26-year-old Syrian man has left his home, the ancient city of Sueda, to take up a job with the Russian army. I'll call him Omar, that's not his real name, and we're changing his voice to protect his identity. He's been promised a backline role, not direct combat, so he thinks he'll be safe. It's too cold. I can barely speak. We can't take it. Omar gets 10 days of basic training, and then he's sent straight to a deadly front line in eastern Ukraine. I have an offensive mission. Me and my luck. What I see on the road, it's something that doesn't leave the mind. Dead bodies everywhere.

1:02I stepped on dead bodies. May God forgive me. We are 100 % going to die here. Death is inevitable. Omar is one of many foreign fighters here.

1:23Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started Europe's bloodiest war in generations. It's estimated that at least 140 ,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and at least 243 ,000 Russian soldiers. With such high fatalities, both sides have been recruiting from beyond their borders to fill their ranks. This is President Putin speaking in March 2022. There are people who want to come voluntarily, especially not for money, and provide assistance to people. Well, you have to meet them halfway and help them move to the combat zone. But what is really driving these young men from all over the world to risk their lives in a war that's not their own?

2:14I'm Nawal El-Makhafi. For the past year, BBC Eye has been investigating the networks enticing young men into joining Russia's army. This is Putin's Foreign Fighters on the documentary for the BBC World Service.

2:33At 26, Omar has spent 14 years living through Syria's brutal civil war. He works in construction, but jobs are scarce and pay is barely enough. So when a local recruiter offers him a job in Russia, guarding oil facilities, he takes it. With 14 other men, he boards a flight from Damascus to Moscow. But when they arrive, they're told the local recruiter is a scammer. Now Omar and the others are stuck in the airport with no money. That's when one of them comes across a Russian woman called Polina on Telegram. She's a glamorous-looking blonde with a big social media presence, and she's offering jobs in the Russian army.

3:24They message her, and she replies immediately. Within hours, she picks them up from the airport and takes them to a recruitment centre in Bryansk, western Russia. Omar says she offered them a one-year contract, which comes with Russian citizenship. They'll get a salary worth the equivalent of US$2 ,500 per month. And they'll also get a sign-up payment of US$5 ,000. It's a huge amount of money compared to what they could earn back home.

3:58Omar was taken to this recruitment centre. In this video, you see Syrian men in civilian clothes sitting in rows. Off camera, I can hear a Russian soldier speaking, and the men repeat his words, saying they voluntarily and consciously accept Russian citizenship. Omar says Polina presented him and the others with military contracts written in Russian. Omar also says Polina told them if they give her$3 ,000 for her services, taken from the$5 ,000 sign-up fee, she will ensure they serve in non-combat roles. They told us we signed a one-year contract. They told us we will be guarding oil installations and mines.

4:48But it's all lies. How could you send us to the front line? And they want to send me alone with three Russians. And I don't understand them. I have absolutely no language, no experience, and the rest are in the same situation. I talked to them. I told them that I want to terminate my contract. We are being sent for slaughter. Fifteen people will be sent to slaughter. Omar is sent to Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and from there he starts sending us voice notes.

5:22The situation is very dangerous. 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. If someone dies, I saw it with my own eyes. They put him in a garbage bag and throw him next to a tree. Polina messages Omar on WhatsApp asking why he hasn't paid her cut, the$3 ,000 he promised her in exchange for keeping him off the front line. She asked me to send her money. I told her that I won't send her money because we have been deceived. This is a video Polina sent Omar in response. Do you recognize your passport? And now look what will happen to it.

6:14It's burning well, your Syrian passport. Omar watches his passport being destroyed and his chances of getting home seem even more remote. Shells are falling like rice, and people like rice on the ground, scattered everywhere. I don't know how I survived this mission, but I might not survive the next. By this time, Omar's been separated from most of the Syrians he came with. In July, he hears that one of them has been killed. He's devastated and even more angry at the women who recruited them. We, as Syrians, as Arabs, from all Arab countries, she sees us as numbers or money. She doesn't see us as people.

7:07We won't forgive her for what she did to us. Omar gets injured and is moved to a backline position. It's finally the supply roll he was expecting when he signed up. But he has to walk miles in freezing temperatures, and it's certainly not safe. He sends us this voice note nearly a year after he left Syria.

7:34My contract ends in a month from today. If they renew the contract, I'm screwed. Oh, God. When Omar signed his contract for one year, there was something important Polina didn't tell him. A decree from President Putin in September 2022 binds all soldiers to serve until the war ends, meaning Omar's contract will renew automatically, leaving him trapped. I want to know more about this Polina, who recruited Omar and his friends. My colleague who specialises in OSINT, open source investigation, has been looking into Polina's background. Her full name is Polina Alexandrovna Azarnik. She's 40 years old from Russia's Voronezh region, and she used to be a teacher.

8:26Before the war, she helped Arab students come to Moscow. Now she runs a Telegram channel that's become a pipeline into the Russian army.

8:38Guys, I'm grateful to you for signing the contract. I want to say thank you to the Syrians who believed in me, who want to fight for Russia, who are fighting for Russia. Thank you for your service in my region. We've been following the thousands of messages she's been posting on it. And in the last year, we've identified over 490 invitations she sent to men from all over the world. Countries include Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, and even countries across Asia and Africa. And we've managed to find someone who says he knows her well. Someone who says he worked with Polina for three years before the war, securing visas for his fellow Syrians to work in Russia.

9:29An experienced fighter, when the war broke out, he willingly signed up with the Russian army. We'll call him Habib.

9:42We haven't been able to verify what he did in the army but the allegations he's making are consistent with what other men have told us He says he saw firsthand how Polina transformed her business and started luring foreign men to join She is one of the most important recruiters in the Russian army She had promised them citizenship, good salaries, and that they'll be safe. But once you sign a contract here, there's no way you can leave. I ask him, do you think these young men knew what was written on their contracts? The 15 people who came from my city did not know at all what was on the contracts.

10:26Not at all. They made it clear to Polina that they did not know how to use any weapons and have never fought a battle. And honestly, Paulina would take them in, knowing that they were going to die. She received from the army$300 for every person she recruited and then dispose of them. Paulina is someone who's always prepared to harm people. She's evil. Habib tells us he's well-connected and speaks Russian. But even then, he struggled to leave the army. He eventually managed it by bribing several commanders to terminate his contract. After a dangerous journey, he makes it home. But many others aren't so lucky.

11:14Yusuf, that's not his real name, idolized his older brother. When Muhammad was living in Egypt, he was the sunlight of the whole house and family. Mohamed loved life. He was a bit of a fashion lover, always stylish and elegant. We lived in an area considered a slum and he wanted to change these conditions to get us out of this place. Mohamed was literally the eyes through which I saw the world. Mohamed met some Egyptians who had lived in Russia and seemed to be doing very well. He started dreaming of going there himself. Eventually, he's accepted onto a university course in Yekaterinburg. He makes it to Russia, but soon starts to struggle financially.

12:02He can't find work and can't pay his course fees on time. His family are really worried, but then he tells them a local woman has stepped in to help. Mohamed told my father about her. He said that there is a girl who is helping me. and if there is anything about the university, she supports me. The girl is Paulina. Yusuf thinks his brother Maher threw friends at university. Paulina found out that Mohammed's financial situation was completely dire. She promised him housing and citizenship. She promised him monthly expenses because Mohammed had definitely told her that we were borrowing to send him money.

12:49Polina seems to be using her existing networks of Arab students to recruit for the army. Yusuf thinks she targets the ones who are struggling. Anyone who hears that would accept the offer. It is a job and it will allow him to pay for university. She pretended to be trying to help him, but her primary goal was for Mohammed to join the Russian army and for her to gain profit from it. Just like Omar, Mohammed thinks he'll have a support role in the rear lines. But when he manages to call his brother Yusuf again, he says... It turned out that everything they had told him was entirely false. He thought he would have nothing to do with war or weapons or ammunition.

13:33Suddenly he was sent to Ukraine. He found himself fighting. He called my father. His voice seemed as if he was in deep shock. He saw something horrific in front of him. He told him, Dad, I saw someone who died in front of me. Mohamed tells Yusuf he's been given minimal training. Mohamed said, they told me four things only. The weapon is held like this. It is reloaded like this. The ammunition is put like this. You put the weapon magazine like this, you run like this. He told me, then I was sent to a police and told to run and kill anyone you meet. They are forcing me to kill people who didn't do any harm to me.

14:22I thought I would only help, not kill others. For 15 terrifying days, they hear nothing from Mohamed. Then briefly, he's back in touch. His last phone call with me took place in January 24th. Afterwards, we did not hear from him. All contact with him was lost. We tried every possible way to reach him, but to no avail. The family are incredibly worried, but they fear that asking questions could get Mohamed into trouble. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. An increasing number of Egyptian families have been contacting the Russian embassy in Cairo about their missing sons. The Egyptian government stripped citizenship from some men who travelled to fight and started more rigorous checks on those travelling to Russia on student visas.

15:24Yusuf and his parents wait eight or nine months in agony, with no news of his brother. Then, in January 2025... It was very late at night. I was holding my father's phone when I got a message on Telegram from a Russian number. The sender's profile picture was in military uniform. I gradually started translating the message and I realised that my brother had passed away. He sent pictures of my brother's corpse.

16:03That was a hellish day for our family. Yusuf finds out his brother was killed almost a year ago. He told me that my brother died on January 25th. It was like a raid or something, and he was participating in one of the operations that they were carrying out. The officer asked Yusuf to identify his brother from the photos, but it's impossible. His features have been completely obliterated.

16:35So they told us to do a DNA test. I was praying that our suspicions would be wrong and that the body would not be my brother's and that the tests would prove that. The tests come back and sadly, they confirm that it is his brother Muhammad's remains. When Muhammad died, it was like my heart was taken from my body. The family haven't been able to repatriate Mohamed's remains. Yusuf knows another Egyptian family who've lost a son in the Russian army. They say they've spent the equivalent of$6 ,000 to bring his body home. We did not have that amount of money. After learning of his brother's death, Yusuf still has so many questions, and he wants to find the woman who recruited his brother.

17:29Paulina had a role in my brother's death. She was 100 % the number one reason. I tried to reach her, but it was in vain. She disappeared. It seemed as if she had several numbers and identities. We've managed to trace 12 families whose sons are missing or dead. Ten were from Egypt, including Mohammed, and two were Syrian. All of them were recruited by Paulina. On her Telegram channel, Polina is defiant.

18:07To all the people who say that I'm throwing people to death, thank you for the advertising. You all understood well that you were going to war. So why are you complaining? You thought you could get a Russian passport and do nothing? And lie in a five-star hotel? This does not happen, guys. Nothing happens for free. Last year, an Egyptian mother whose son had gone missing from the front line posted on Facebook, warning other men not to trust the woman who'd recruited him. Paulina sent this in response. And just to warn you, her language is very strong. You publish something horrible about Russian army.

18:45I'll fuck your son in Russian army. You don't understand. So I'll fuck his life. You understand or no? Stupid bitch. As the war progresses, Polina's videos on her telegram start to change. She's more upfront, saying that recruits will be participating in hostilities. And she admits that some foreign fighters have died in combat. But she's still offering recruits a one-year contract, failing to mention Putin's decree, which means they'll be serving until the end of the war. I really want to talk to Polina about what she's been doing, so I message her. And to my surprise, she replies. Thank you very much.

19:28How are you? I hope everything's fine. She seems open to meeting.

19:39In August 2024, Ukraine launched a surprise counteroffensive into Russian territory, targeting the city of Kursk. The operation caught Russian forces off guard. Ukrainian forces captured a reported 594 prisoners of war, some of whom were foreign fighters. We've been told about two Yemeni men, Khalil and Hussein, who went missing around this time. Their families are desperate for information. They were told the truck they were traveling in was bombed and haven't heard anything from them for months.

20:19We're on our way to Lviv in western Ukraine, to one of the country's largest prisoner of war facilities. Does anyone here speak Arabic? Where are you from? We're told we can talk to anyone, as long as they give consent. Walking between the tables in a huge prison canteen, the scale of Russia's recruitment program becomes clear. There are people here from all over the world. I've met someone from Egypt, from Senegal, from Sri Lanka. There are men here from everywhere. We've been told there are two Yemeni men in another part of the prison. We're hoping they are Hussain and Khalil. We're taking us to them now.

21:17I'm a journalist, I tell them. I'm also Yemeni, and I've been talking with your families for a while now.

21:28Khalil says he can't believe it. Is this a dream or real, he asks. Khalil explains that he and Hussain had only been in Russia for six weeks before they were captured. They were part of a platoon of 20 Yemenis.

21:48I tell Khalil I've spoken to his mother and she's well, but she's worried about him. He asks after his dad. I can see the relief on his face, knowing they're safe and well. Khalil tells me he knew going to Russia might mean he'd have to serve in the army, but not that he'd be sent to the front line. As the main breadwinner for his family, he says he was desperate for money. I mean, I never dreamed of having$2 ,400. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't have signed. If I worked for 10 years, I wouldn't get the same amount as I got in Russia in one year.

22:35I ask him, did you ever think that there might be innocent people on the other side that you would kill? If I had known that, I wouldn't have joined this world. Khalil asks if he can use my phone to call his mother, to let her know he's alive.

22:58Mom, don't cry. God bless you. I swear, I can't believe I'm talking to you right now. It's the first time I talk to you in eight months. Mom, I made the biggest mistake. Forgive me, forgive me. And tell my dad to forgive me. Only my mother's and father's praise will get me out of here.

23:27Khalil hands my phone back to me. I can see he's distraught.

23:35Oh, thank God, my mom is relieved. It sounds like you've been reassuring her. For now, Khalil and his friend Hussein can only leave prison if they're sent back to Yemen or traded in a prisoner exchange with Russia. Foreign fighters represent a tiny fraction of Russia's overall army, but they're still being recruited to this day. We wrote to the Russian government, but they didn't respond. We contacted the Yemeni embassy in Moscow, but they didn't answer our questions. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined an interview request. Hi, Polina. This is Nawal al-Makhafi from the BBC. I want to ask if you'd be willing to do an interview.

24:18Good evening, Nawal. You can sit in the Russian embassy that you won't make a reportage about this place. Polina even invites us to film her in Russia, offering to get us visas. So, welcome to Russia. For security reasons, we decline. After weeks of back and forth, she agrees to speak to us via video call.