South African police said on Monday they have arrested nine foreign nationals, aged 20 to 26, for attempting to fly to Russia and join the war in Ukraine.
The suspects were arrested at the O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg and in a nearby hotel as they were preparing to depart for Russia. South African police said the investigation leading to the arrests involved both local and international law enforcement agencies, including Interpol.
South Africa has a law, passed in 1998, called the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act that forbids mercenary activity and sharply restricts South Africa’s provision of military assistance to foreign conflicts. The law also covers foreign nationals while they are within South Africa’s jurisdiction.
The police statement did not initially specify the nationality of the “foreign” suspects or which side of the war they were planning to join, but South Africa and other African nations have long complained about Russia recruiting their citizens to fight against Ukraine, often under false pretenses. Later statements by South African police indicated the nine suspects arrested on Monday were Zimbabweans.
In February, Kenyan intelligence released a report that found over a thousand Kenyans were recruited by Russia with false promises of safe jobs in Russia. When they landed on Russian soil, they were immediately sent to the Ukrainian battlefield. Many of them went on to be killed, injured, or missing in action.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in February that Russia has used deceptive “schemes” to lure over 1,700 Africans into the “deadly war.”
South Africa’s most notorious Russian recruitment scandal erupted in November 2025, when police arrested Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, daughter of former president Jacob Zuma, in connection with a plot to lure at least 17 South African men into fighting for Russia.
Zuma-Sambudla was a lawmaker in the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, founded by her father as a left-wing opposition party after he broke with the ruling African National Congress (ANC). According to prosecutors, the victims were duped into believing they would have high-paying positions as bodyguards for the MK Party, but they wound up trapped in Ukraine’s hotly contested Donbas region, fighting with a Russian mercenary group.
A month later, a host with South Africa’s SAFM state radio network, Nonkululeko Patricia Mantula, was arrested for recruiting at least four South African men to fight for Russia. These four victims also reportedly believed they were being hired as bodyguards. Both Zuma-Sambudla and Mantula claimed they were in turn duped by Russian mercenary recruiters and truly believed they were securing lucrative bodyguard jobs for their “clients.”
In June 2026, Zimbabwean police arrested a man named Edward Kachingwe who was allegedly working with the Russian army to recruit Zimbabwean men for combat. Kachingwe was arrested in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare while attempting to board a bus with five of his recruits. Their destination was South Africa, from where they hoped to catch a plane to Russia.
Zimbabwean officials say at least 15 of their nationals have been killed while fighting for Russia in Ukraine, and dozens more remain trapped on the frontlines.
“It is a sophisticated scheme of deception, exploitation, and human trafficking that has already resulted in the loss of Zimbabwean lives,” Information Minister Zhemu Soda said in March.
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