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For months, Roji Pun has been regularly visiting the Russian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Each time she knocks at the gate of the high-walled compound, her 21-month-old son in tow, and asks the same desperate question: Where is my husband?
Bhuwan Pun’s family hasn’t heard from him since he joined the Russian army as a “helper” last September. He is one of thousands of Nepali men who have been lured north by a lucrative package that Moscow announced last year for foreign recruits.
Russia’s aggressive push to attract foreign fighters has given rise to scams and trafficking operations throughout the Global South, including in India and Cuba. Often, recruits are promised support jobs as army helpers, cooks, or cleaners, and are required to pay expensive travel and immigration fees, before being sent to the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine war.
In Nepal, they have left broken families and painful mysteries in their wake. While the government has banned Russian recruitment in Nepal, which has slowed the outflow of mercenaries, local politician and activist Kritu Bhandari believes leaders are not doing enough “to rescue our brothers.”
“It is the responsibility of the government to protect the lives of its citizens. Our government is not fulfilling its responsibilities,” says Ms. Bhandari, a leading advocate for families of Nepali fighters. “They have left hundreds of men to die out there in that brutal war.”
In the meantime, she and other campaigners are urging Russian authorities to allow Nepali fighters to return home “on a humanitarian basis.”
Russia’s war needs
Russia’s war in Ukraine has been taxing. Various intelligence agencies estimate that the Kremlin suffered an average of more than 1,000 casualties a day in May, the highest casualty rate since the war began. Early reports suggest that June was equally catastrophic.
To maintain its offensives – and preserve the government’s popularity – Moscow has mobilized incarcerated people, utilized foreign mercenary groups, recruited troops from former Soviet republics, and launched a global recruitment drive that has sent thousands of troops from low-income nations to the front lines.
Nepal is among the poorest countries in the world, with an unemployment rate of 11.1% and more than 15% of its people living below the poverty line, according to World Bank data.
Lack of economic opportunity forces 1,700 Nepalis to leave the landlocked Himalayan nation every day. According to the 2021 census, nearly 2.1 million Nepalis live outside Nepal, 7.4% of the total population, the majority of whom work in informal sectors. The Russia-Ukraine war has become a new attraction.
There are no precise figures for Nepalis fighting in Ukraine. A prisoner of war recently told Ukrainian authorities that he saw some 200 Nepalis during his brief spell in the Russian military, and guessed that 3,000 to 4,000 had joined up. Other reports suggest that as many as 15,000 Nepali men have been drafted into the Russian war effort.
Campaigners for families of missing recruits say they have details of more than 600 Nepali nationals who have joined the Russian army, including some who have managed to return home.
A survivor’s tale
Among the escapees is I. Sunar, who is trying to rebuild his life in Nepal and asked that his full name not be printed in order to preserve his privacy.
Mr. Sunar was working as a police officer when he met a recruitment agent in Kathmandu. The agent said he would be helping military personnel in urban areas, away from any active war zone, and the job paid nine times more than his $225-a-month salary in Nepal.
“I thought it would change my life for the better,” says Mr. Sunar, hands shaking as he walks through a busy Kathmandu market.
Mr. Sunar had to pay the agent roughly $2,600 to arrange his travel and bribe a Nepali immigration officer (who authorities say has since been suspended). His experience aligns closely with other survivors’ reports, and the senior superintendent of police in Kathmandu, who has been investigating the case, confirmed the details in this story.
Mr. Sunar landed in Moscow on Sept. 20 along with half a dozen other Nepali men. To their surprise, they were swept off to a military training facility where they spent two weeks in boot camp before being sent to the front lines.
“On the front lines, it was very cold, and there was no proper management of food and water,” Mr. Sunar recalls. “Every day someone among us would get killed, and no one was recovering their bodies or recording their deaths.”
It was in December, after barely escaping a drone strike that killed eight Nepalis serving alongside him, that Mr. Sunar decided to flee.
“I did not want to die without making any efforts to save my life,” he says.
Often, the same trafficking networks that are involved in bringing fighters to Russia also help getting deserters out. But Mr. Sunar credits his escape to good fortune and determination. After he deserted his post, he says it took five days of walking, hitchhiking, and swimming across rivers to reach Moscow.
“I cannot describe the happiness I felt on reaching the Nepal Embassy,” he says. “God saved me.”
Families seek closure
During one of the few calls Mr. Pun had with his wife, he mentioned that he was being sent on a similar weekslong military training course.
That would have been a shock to Mr. Pun, who had been making $112 a month as a teacher when a relative told him about the “helper” job in Russia. A monthly salary of $2,000 and the prospect of obtaining a Russian passport after a year felt like a dream for the Pun family. He was never told anything about serving in a combat unit.
“After that, there was no call from him,” says Ms. Pun. Despite repeated attempts to reach her husband, she heard nothing from Russia until her phone buzzed the evening of Feb. 12.
On the line was a man who identified himself as a friend of her husband's, also working in the Russian army, who told her that her husband had been killed.
Devastated and confused, Ms. Pun left her in-laws’ house in Pokhara, Nepal, moving to the capital, where she hoped the Russian Embassy would be able to offer more information. But whenever she visits, the guards turn her away.
She can’t bring herself to tell her in-laws about the February phone call without official confirmation or proof that her husband is dead.
“I am still in disbelief,” she says, tears streaking her face. “If he has been killed, the Russian government should send us his dead body.”
Nepal’s foreign ministry has urged Russia to repatriate the bodies of its citizens killed in the war, and the government has banned citizens from traveling to Russia or Ukraine for work.
But Ms. Bhandari, the campaigner, wants more.
Her group has organized protests, marches, and hunger strikes demanding the rescue of Nepali citizens serving in Russia. “But instead of taking any concrete action, the government is harassing us,” she says, referring to an April sit-in where she and several other activists were detained by police.
Demonstrators say they want Nepali officials to leverage their connections with more influential countries – such as China and India – to pressure Russia to expedite the return of Nepali citizens and bodies. Other demands include compensation for victims’ families, treatment of those wounded in the war, and information on fighters who have gone missing.
“No matter what happens, I will not abandon these families,” Ms. Bhandari says. “We will keep raising our voice until our men are brought back.”
