Russia Restricts “Friendly” Countries Mercenary Recruitment

The Russian recruiters luring foreigners into the war against Ukraine have been given a “blacklist” of countries from where it is now prohibited to “import” mercenaries, IStories has discovered.

We have found the list in the recruiters' groups and chats on social media. The information has also been confirmed by one of the major regional recruitment centers.

In early January 2026, recruiters began distributing a list of countries whose citizens are banned from signing contracts with the Russian Armed Forces from 2026 on.

We found the earliest mention of the list on the TikTok account of Kelvin Egyir, a mercenary from Ghana. He had served in the Russian army and is now promoting the service to the African audience.

The 36 countries stoplist is being circulated among the recruiters working in Arabic-speaking regions. The list mainly includes African and Arab countries as well as other states officially listed as “friendly” to Russia: China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iran, and Venezuela.

It is unknown who exactly made the decision to reduce the list of countries for recruitment and at what level it was done. The list is likely to have been a result of diplomatic contacts.

For example, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka had appealed to the Russian authorities with requests and demands to stop recruiting their citizens to the war since mid-2024. Moscow pledged not to lure Indians and Sri Lankans into signing the military contracts.

In November 2025, Jordan made the same demand. Soon after, the country was added to the banning list.

Kenya, an important source of mercenaries for the Russian army, was also added to the list. According to the local authorities, more than 1,000 Kenyans ended up fighting on the frontlines in the ranks of the Russian army. In February 2026, the Kenyan government publicly called on Russia to stop its recruitment campaign in the country. However, Ben Stimson, a British instructor training African mercenaries in the Russian army, mentioned a ban on recruiting Kenyans and Nigerians back in January. 

According to media reports, most recruits from Africa ended up on the front lines in the summer and fall of 2025 as a result of deception. For example, 35-year-old Kenyan Francis Ndarua was offered a job as an electrical engineer in Russia, his mother said in a CNN interview. In October 2025, she lost contact with him, and later she recognized her son in a video circulating on social media, where a Black soldier in Russian military uniform is racially insulted and forced to storm the front lines with an anti-tank mine attached to his chest. The author of the video, presumably a Russian soldier, calls Francis a “can opener” and says that he would be "hopping around the woods.” His fate remains unknown.

In February, several more countries could have been added to the stop list, in addition to the 36 previously mentioned. The expanded list was published by Mustafa al-Yasari, an Iraqi blogger who exposes Russian recruitment networks in the country. According to him, Argentina, Iraq, Yemen, Cameroon, Colombia, Libya, and Somalia have also been banned. The information had been allegedly provided to the blogger by a Russian officer.

“Thanks to our government for contacting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Iraqi embassy in Russia,” al-Yasari said. “Thank God, we have put an end to this issue: no more young men will be fighting in the Russian ranks. And those who left a week or two ago will return.”

The Iraqi blogger did not respond to our follow-up questions on social media.

The alleged agreement between Iraq and Russia has probably not affected the Iraqis who were already on the front lines. On February 19, it was reported that a popular Iraqi pop singer Hussein al-Turki had been killed. In his November video, he told his followers he had come to Moscow at an invitation to perform at a concert. Then he was taken to a city located 16 hours' drive from the Russian capital and asked to sign a Russian-language document which turned out to be a contract with the Russian Armed Forces.

The contract recruitment center which had previously distributed the 36 countries list, has not confirmed the expansion of the list. They have kept recruiting mercenaries from Colombia, for example, as confirmed by IStories.

According to “I Want to Live", a Ukrainian project allowing Russian servicemen to voluntarily surrender to Ukrainian forces, Russia had recruited more than 10,000 foreign mercenaries by the fall of 2025. The citizens of countries now included in the stop list accounted for 37% of the total number of foreigners. Among them, the leaders are Cuba (with over 1,000 people), Nepal (about 800 people), and Sri Lanka (over 700 people). The largest number of mercenaries come from the EAEU states: Tajikistan (with over 1,500 people), Belarus (over 1,300), and Kazakhstan (over 1,100).

In 2025, outside the EAEU, the Russian army was most active in recruiting citizens of Ghana, Cameroon, and Kenya — with at least 100 people from each country, according to the recent data provided to IStories by the “I Want to Live” project.