Forced recruitment of Africans into the Russian army: a minister in the crosshairs in Kenya

In late June 2025, Erastus Mundia left Kenya to try his luck in Russia, as part of a Kenyan government worker placement program. He ultimately died in the Russian army, and his family holds Kenyan Labor Minister Alfred Mutua responsible.

Erastus, a 38-year-old father of three, is one of hundreds of Kenyans, often with no military background, who were promised well-paid civilian jobs in Russia and, once there, found themselves forced to sign a contract with the Russian army.

Sent to the front in Ukraine, often after very short military training, several of them perished.

"Since I learned the news (of his death), I haven't eaten. My body no longer belongs to me," sighs Josephine Ngoya, Erastus's mother, holding a portrait of her son, cap on his head, during the presentation of his university diploma.

"I feel that the government and Alfred Mutua have betrayed us," denounces this woman in her fifties, interviewed by AFP in the green region of Kakamega (west), where she lives.

While Nairobi officially estimates the number of victims of Russia's "irregular military recruitment" at 291, including 19 dead and 32 missing, Kenyan intelligence services, in a report obtained by AFP, estimate their number at more than 1,000 and point to complicity within the state.

Three Kenyan sources - a senior official, a security services officer and a lawyer, all familiar with the case - told AFP that Alfred Mutua was compromised, politically for sponsoring the program, but also personally, which AFP was unable to verify.

After initially agreeing to an interview with AFP, the Minister of Labour ultimately did not follow through.

On June 26, 2025, he posed on X with about twenty young men - including Erastus, recognizable by his large glasses - before their departure for Russia, evoking a "chance" that would "change their lives".

"They will receive a net salary of 115,000 shillings (765 euros) per month, with accommodation and food provided, and will work in a food packaging factory," he stated.

- Treason -

Alfred Mutua is an official in the government of President William Ruto, elected in 2022, and was the first foreign minister before being replaced by Musalia Mudavadi.

In this role, he hosted his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Kenya in May 2023, 15 months after Moscow began its invasion of Ukraine. Nairobi, despite its alignment with the Western bloc, announced at the time the strengthening of its trade relations with Russia.

Having become Minister of Labour, Alfred Mutua put into practice President Ruto's program which, since 2023, has sent more than 400,000 Kenyans to work abroad so that they can overcome the cycle of poverty and unemployment from which they suffer in Kenya.

But also so that they support and boost the Kenyan economy through their remittances to the country, officially estimated by the executive at one trillion shillings, or 6.7 billion euros for 2025.

It was in this capacity that Mr. Mutua appeared on X a year ago with Erastus and about twenty of his companions in misfortune and explained how a public fund had taken care of their plane tickets and other expenses, which they would then have to reimburse.

Erastus died in January, according to his parents. AFP was unable to trace the fate of the other departed.

“Mutua is primarily responsible because the trafficking of Kenyans to Russia was initiated under the auspices of a government-to-government program,” denounces Ojiro Odhiambo of the human rights NGO Vocal Africa, which has been contacted by more than 500 families of Kenyan victims. Among them, he says, more than 350 have received confirmation of their loved ones’ deaths, notably through photos of their corpses that appeared on social media. Only 37 of them have returned.

"We want him (Alfred Mutua) to take personal responsibility for this international crime," argues Ojiro Odhiambo.

Several elements suggest the involvement of the minister, whose integrity was already strongly questioned last year, a Western diplomat reminded AFP.

Kenyans seeking to work in the Gulf countries had denounced the frauds of recruitment agencies, but also of the Ministry of Labour which had provided them with accreditation.

Alfred Mutua had been heard on this subject in May 2025 by Parliament, before which he appeared accompanied by Festus Omwamba, head of one of these agencies, Global Face Human Resources.

- "Key player" -

Mr. Omwamba subsequently filed a complaint with the presidential party's disciplinary committee against the minister's main critic, Senator Gloria Omambia, who was ultimately expelled from the party and stripped of her mandate. She declined to comment to AFP.

Or Festus Omwamba has since been presented by the police as "a key player" in the sinister Russian scam. Charged with "human trafficking," he was released on bail on March 23 after weeks of pretrial detention.

"Mutua was behind all this, but it was Festus who was thrown to the wolves," the security source told AFP, a statement corroborated by the senior Kenyan official and lawyer.

"We saw Alfred Mutua on television asking Kenyan youth to believe him when he said they would have work" abroad, "but the job the government was selling was to fight in Russia," summarizes Julius Matee, a neighbor of Erastus's parents.

"If the president feels our pain, he should fire Alfred Mutua" and "put him in prison," he thundered.

According to the senior official interviewed by AFP, William Ruto "knows" that Alfred Mutua is "heavily involved", that he sold himself "for money" in Moscow, and he has greatly reduced contact with him.

After months of media silence, the Minister of Labour finally appeared with the President on May 1st, on the occasion of Labour Day.

With the 2027 presidential election looking uncertain, the Kenyan head of state still doesn't know "whether he will get rid of him before or after," according to the senior official, who believes Alfred Mutua "should not be in the government. He should face justice."

And this man recalled that the Minister of Labor had wanted to accompany Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi on a visit to Moscow in March. A request, he said, refused by the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs because "it would have been like covering one's face in mud, an insult to the victims."