Indians Trapped in War Zone: Lured with job, now fighting for Russia against Ukraine, says report

livemint.com:

Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Punjab, have reached out to authorities for help, including to Member of Parliament, Asaduddin Owaisi. They claim the men were promised jobs with high salaries but ended up trapped in a dangerous situation. One man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he and two others were recruited through a YouTube channel and transported to Russia in November 2023.

After signing contracts promising non-combat roles, they were allegedly given weapons training and deployed to the war zone in January, the report added. "We faced bullets 7-8 times," he recounted, describing a close call where a companion was killed. He managed to escape but remains undocumented and fearful in Russia, as per the report.

“On November 13, we were admitted into a camp and taken to a deserted place around two-and-half hours away from Moscow. We contacted the Indian agents and they assured us that we would be posted as helpers. We lived in tents and were trained to handle weapons.

On January 4, we were sent to Donetsk to fight," he said, as quoted in the report. He said that after they were forced to fight, he found an opportunity to escape and threw away his weapon. “But I was caught and threatened at gunpoint.

They asked me to transport goods from one building to another. The commander told us to walk maintaining a gap of five metres so that we do not become easy targets. In the short walk, we faced bullets 7 to 8 times, and a local accompanying me was killed.