President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday expressed appreciation to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in facilitating their return.
Four South African men who were lured into fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine have returned home, with 11 others expected back soon.
South African authorities disclosed in November that they had received “distress calls” from 17 men who were trapped on the front line in Ukraine’s Donbas region after being tricked into joining mercenary forces.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday expressed appreciation to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in facilitating their return.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has welcomed the return of the South African men who were lured into the battle lines between Russia and Ukraine by South African elements that remain under investigation,” the presidency said in the statement.
“The South African government working closely with the Russian government has secured a safe return of the men. This followed receipt of distressed calls for assistance to return home from seventeen (17) South African men between the ages of 20-39 years.”
According to the statement, four of the 17 men arrived back in South Africa last week, while 11 others were expected to return soon. The remaining two are still in Russia.
“President Putin had pledged his support during a telephone call with President Ramaphosa held on the 10th of February 2026.
“Out of the seventeen men, four are already back in the country, while eleven will be on their way home soon. Two remain in Russia with one in a hospital in Moscow, while the other one is being processed before finalising his travel arrangements,” the statement said.
“The South African embassy in Moscow will continue to monitor the individual that is in hospital until he has fully recovered to travel.”
“The investigation into the circumstances that led to the recruitment of these young men into mercenary activities is ongoing,” the presidency added.
South African law prohibits its citizens from fighting for a foreign country’s army without government authorisation.
The war sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has attracted foreign mercenaries on both sides. Ukraine’s foreign minister said in November that more than 1,400 citizens from 36 African countries had been identified among the Russian ranks.
Journalists from Agence France-Presse recently spoke to four Kenyans who returned from Russia and said they were deceived by a Nairobi recruitment agency under false promises of well-paid jobs.
The issue has also generated political controversy in South Africa. A daughter of former president Jacob Zuma resigned from parliament after claims she was involved in recruiting men to join Russian mercenaries.
Earlier on Tuesday, the European Union ambassador to Nigeria raised concerns over reports that Russia was recruiting Nigerians and other Africans to fight in the Ukraine war.
Gautier Mignot described the practice as “extremely crude” and harmful to people with no connection to the conflict.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Tuesday, Mignot said civil society organisations had reported a growing trend of Africans being lured to Russia with promises of work.
“There is another important phenomenon which is impacting Africa, which is recruitment of African men and women by Russia. Women to be sent and work in military plants in Russia and men to be sent as cannon fodder on the front. Of course they are being lured with job promises,” he said.
The EU ambassador said Russia is resorting to recruiting from Africa because it is running out of soldiers.
“Russia is running out of soldiers, so they have been growingly doing that including with Nigerians, and it’s extremely crude sending these people who have absolutely nothing to do with this war to die on the front,” he said.
Recently, a 32-year-old Nigerian man earlier reported dead in the ongoing war in Ukraine was found alive, after being captured by Ukrainian troops in January.
Balogun Adisa Ridwan, who had travelled to Russia in search of employment, was listed among Nigerians allegedly killed in the conflict.
His name circulated in media reports in February, with claims that he and three others, namely Adam Anas, Akinlawon Tunde Kuyum, and Abugu Stanley Onyeka, had died after being recruited under false pretenses and sent to the battlefield.
But Balogun is not dead, according to a report by United24Media.
Instead, he had been taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces near the city of Lyman in the Donetsk region on January 13, 2026, after surrendering at the front lines. From captivity, he would later learn that he had already been declared dead back home in Nigeria.
Balogun had travelled to Russia on a tourist visa, hoping to secure work as an engineer. According to his account, he was promised employment but later found himself at a military base where he signed documents he could not understand due to language barriers.
Without access to a translator or his phone, which he said was confiscated, he became part of a group of foreign recruits deployed to the war front after only weeks of training.
In a related development, a confidential briefing by Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) to Parliament recently disclosed that more than 1,000 Kenyans had been drawn into the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, many of them allegedly deceived by fraudulent recruitment agents promising lucrative jobs abroad.
The report, tabled before the National Assembly by Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah, paints a troubling picture of how young Kenyans, including former security officers and unemployed civilians, were lured with offers of well-paying security and logistics roles, only to find themselves redirected to military training camps and eventually deployed to the battlefield.
