David Kuloba’s mother warned him about going to Russia after he accepted a job as a security guard advertised by a recruitment agency in Kenya.
At first the family, who live in the Kenyan capital’s crowded informal settlement of Kibera had been excited when he said he had found work abroad – it sounded like a rare break.
The 22-year-old had been doing casual labour in Nairobi – from selling groundnuts to construction jobs – and had long hoped to secure work in the Gulf.
But when his mother asked which country he was heading to, his reply shocked her.
“He showed me his phone and said: ‘Look, it’s Russia,'” Susan Kuloba told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
“I told him: ‘Don’t you see what they show on TV about Russia? It’s never good,” she recalled.
But her son insisted the offer was genuine, telling her he had been promised more than $7,000 (£5,250) on arrival – a life-changing sum for a young man with no stable income.
Despite her protests, he travelled to Russia in August without telling her the exact date of his departure.
She was shocked when he contacted her later, saying he had arrived and sending a photograph of himself in full combat uniform.
“He told me: ‘Mum, the job we were told we came to do has been changed, but even this one is not bad,'” she said.
Her son explained that he and some other Kenyan men had been given two weeks of combat training – and he was heading to the battle zone in Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022.
Within days, he told her that he and others had been ambushed in an area controlled by Russian forces. She pleaded with him to come home.
“I said: ‘David, please leave that place.’ He told me: ‘How can I leave? I signed a contract. Give me at least one year.’
“Then I received the message I feared,” Mrs Kuloba said.
It was 4 October. David had sent her a voice note saying he was about to go into battle and in case he did not survive, he wanted her to have details of his Russian military ID and contract, which was written in Russian.
He urged her to take the documents to the Russian embassy if anything happened to him.
That was the last time she heard from him.
Confused and terrified, she sought help not long after from her son’s friend, who told her that he had heard David was dead.
“I asked his friend: ‘How do you know?’ He said: ‘Let me give you the number of the agent who received us in Russia.'”
Mrs Kuloba messaged the number – the replies came in Russian at first. When she identified herself, the person told her in English that David was missing, feared dead.
“I’m sorry to tell you this about your son,” the agent said.
She asked for a picture of his body, or confirmation that David was in a morgue. None came.
The contact told her he was “very far away”, and suggested that she travel to Russia herself, or send another relative, something she said the family could not afford to do.
Later, the same contact told her she was “entitled to compensation” for her son’s death but again, without providing any documentation.
Mrs Kuloba says she has been unable to obtain official confirmation from the Russian authorities about David. When she visited the Russian embassy in Nairobi, officials there told her they did not “associate with the army”.
She has no idea what to do next and is beside herself with grief: “How do we start? Because we don’t know anything. He was my first-born. I depended on him.”
The father of another Kenyan man who went to work in Russia told the BBC he was recruited on the understanding that he was going to be driver – nothing to do with armed combat.
The young man ended up being wounded in Ukraine and has been too traumatised to speak since returning home two weeks ago. The BBC has agreed not to identify him to protect his wellbeing.
His father only discovered that his son had travelled to Russia after receiving word that he had been injured.
“He had hinted that people were going, and I discouraged him,” the father told the BBC. “I was following the war from the beginning. I was not comfortable.”
Agents had promised around $1,500 a month, he said – “good money” for a qualified driver in Kenya.
His son later told him that, like David Kuloba, he had been trained for only two weeks before being sent to the battlefield.
“He said he was injured in the bush and for five days he could not find treatment. He was using painkillers,” the father said.
He was eventually taken towards the border where he received first aid and was later transferred to St Petersburg.
He had described seeing “scattered bodies of other fighters” and explained that many like him had signed one-year contracts without fully understanding the terms, the father said.
Last month, Kenya’s foreign minister said some 200 Kenyans were known to be fighting for Russia and acknowledged that recruitment networks were still active.
This followed the news in September that a young Kenyan athlete had been captured in Ukraine, saying he had been tricked into joining the Russian army.
The government now says several recruitment agencies are under investigation, and some licences have already been suspended.
“Some agencies lure young people with promises of large payments. The government is tracking those agencies linked to this fraud,” Sylvanus Osoro, Kenya’s parliamentary majority chief whip, told the BBC.
Out of about 130 registered recruitment agencies in Kenya, around five had been flagged, with three already suspended and two others under investigation, he explained.
Parliament’s Defence and Foreign Relations Committee had taken up the matter and the agencies it summoned were expected to outline how they had recruited young people, what information they had provided and how contracts were presented, Osoro said.
BBC
I just feel heartbroken. He wanted to help us. He thought he was going for a better job”Susan Kuloba
Mother of 22-year-old David Kuloba
But families with relatives unexpectedly fighting for Russian forces have criticised the government for its slow response, saying they feel helpless.
Pressed on what was being done to repatriate those who were lured into combat roles, Osoro said the process must follow diplomatic channels.
“A contract is signed willingly, even if they were not aware,” he said. “It can only be handled diplomatically. Those engagements are happening.”
He said that all known cases had “been mapped” and that officials were verifying the circumstances under which contracts had been signed. But he declined to confirm how many Kenyans might have died.
“I wouldn’t give such a report. That is not for me,” he said. “What I can say is that work is in progress.”
Osoro said new legislation was being drafted to tighten controls on recruitment agencies, including stricter scrutiny before licences were issued and clearer distinctions between categories of work.
The issue extends beyond Kenya. The authorities in several African countries have reported cases of young people being approached with offers of lucrative jobs in Russia that later led to military recruitment.
Many families are reluctant to speak publicly, fearing stigma or uncertainty about the legal implications for their relatives abroad.
In South Africa, it has become a major scandal after it was alleged that a daughter of former President Jacob Zuma was involved in the recruitment process. She denies any wrongdoing.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned that anyone fighting for Russia will be treated as an enemy combatant, and that the only safe route out is to surrender and be treated as a prisoner of war.
Mrs Kuloba still has no official confirmation of her son’s fate. She would like his body to be repatriated if he has died.
“I just feel heartbroken,” she said. “He wanted to help us. He thought he was going for a better job.”
Additional reporting by BBC Newsday’s Maureen Nyukuri in Nairobi
