14 Pinoys ‘recruited’ by Russia for Ukraine war

A Ukrainian serviceman is seen in the window of a damaged residential building at Koshytsa Street, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where a military shell allegedly hit, on February 25, 2022. Russian forces reached the outskirts of Kyiv on Friday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the invading troops were targeting civilians and explosions could be heard in the besieged capital. Pre-dawn blasts in Kyiv set off a second day of violence after Russian President Vladimir Putin defied Western warnings to unleash a full-scale ground invasion and air assault on Thursday that quickly claimed dozens of lives and displaced at least 100,000 people.

AFP / Daniel Leal

MANILA, Philippines — Fourteen Filipinos were reportedly recruited in Russia and lured into combat roles for its war against Ukraine, a security expert said yesterday.

Of the 14 Filipinos allegedly fighting for Moscow, Munira Mustaffa, executive director of Chasseur Group, said one was killed and another is a prisoner of war.

“So far, the alleged count of Filipinos is 14,” Mustaffa said in a European Union- organized online discussion on Russia’s recruitment of nationals from Asia for its war in Ukraine.

Mustaffa, also the founder of Chasseur Group, a security consultancy based in Kuala Lumpur and a senior fellow at Verve Research, an independent think tank focused on Southeast Asian security and foreign policy, wrote the report “Southeast Asia’s Mercenary Pipeline.”

She said the Filipinos were not aware they were recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine war.

In January, a Filipino fighting alongside Russian forces was killed in Ukraine. He was named by Ukraine’s intelligence services as among those killed in the Donetsk region.