Azad Yousuf Kumar, 32, from south Kashmir's Pulwama district, told DW that while looking for employment opportunities abroad in December 2023, he came across a YouTube channel advertising lucrative security positions in Russia.
Azad said that he was enticed by the prospects and claims to have paid the company behind the now-deleted channel around 130,000 rupees (€1,430; $1,486) for travel and processing fees. He said that he was willing to do so, as he hadn't found work locally despite being a commerce graduate.
Azad explained that he had no idea at the time that he would eventually become stranded along the Russia-Ukraine border with a dozen other Indians and end up fighting in Russia's war in Ukraine for several months.
"I endured near-death experiences, including being injured during combat training, all while becoming contracted to the Russian army to fight in the Ukraine war," Azad told DW from his residence in Kashmir.
Azad's ordeal in Luhansk
Azad told DW that he faced the brutal realities of war when he ended up stationed in Ukraine's war-torn city of Luhansk. He claimed that he and others dug trenches amid artillery fire and incoming shells — which, he said, often landed very close to their positions.
"Just a couple of weeks into training, I suffered a gunshot wound to my foot due to the unfamiliarity of holding the weapon, leading to over two weeks of hospitalization," Azad said.
"When I came back home after nine months, it was a miracle. I had fallen prey to a massive employment scam as had many other boys from India. Yes, there are flashes of my frightening stay there … but my young daughter now provides me solace," he said.
Last month, India's government admitted that 126 Indian nationals have served in the Russian army. At least 12 Indian nationals have died in fighting and 16 others are missing.
So far, 96 people have returned to India after their discharge from the Russian armed forces, it said.
"We have also reiterated our demand for the early discharge of the remaining Indian nationals," said the Foreign Ministry's official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal.
Like Azad, several other young men from south India said that they too ended up in Russia after coming across the video offer.
Grateful to be alive
Syed Ilyas Hussaini, a 23-year-old from India's southwestern state of Karnataka, and his friends Abdul Nayeem and Mohammed Sameer Ahmed said they were lured by the promise of lucrative security guard positions in Russia. They reported being assured of monthly salaries of between 70,000–100,000 rupees.
"I was initially employed in a catering company as a worker at the Dubai airport but returned home to India and told my father, Syed Nawaj Ali, of a new job in Russia," Hussaini told DW.
But instead of the promised security jobs, they claim to have been coerced into joining a private military company and deployed to the Russia-Ukraine border along with people from Nepal and Cuba.
"My friends and I were coerced into signing contracts written in Russian, a language which I did not understand, and soon found ourselves conscripted into the Russian army," Hussaini told DW.
"Our passports and mobiles were taken away, and once we were forced to wear army fatigues, it dawned on us that we had been cheated, and we feared the worst. It was torture, and our commander treated us badly," he added.
"We feared we would never get out alive, and when a colleague, Hemil Mangukiya from Surat in Gujarat, was killed in a drone attack while digging a trench, I thought I would die, too," said Hussaini.
In March last year, Hussaini described how he managed to get hold of a mobile phone and, together with other Indian nationals, recorded a video message highlighting the dire situation they were facing.
"It went viral, and that is when the government and politicians woke up to our plight. Then it was months before we were sent back to Moscow and came back home in September," claimed Hussaini. The video has since been deleted.
In July, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to Moscow, Russia promised to discharge any Indians who had been falsely induced to join its army and then forced into active combat in Ukraine, according to Reuters, which cited an Indian official.
The decision, which was not formally announced by Russia, had come after Modi's meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
Russian roulette for Indians
Many youths said they were lured into Russia under false pretenses and claimed to have ended up in the ongoing war zone simply because they were desperate for work and the risk of going abroad appeared better than staying in India with little to no job prospects.
Mohammad Sufiyan from Hyderabad in the southern Indian state of Telangana said that he suffered a similar fate upon arriving at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport in December 2023.
He claimed that his documents were confiscated, and he was coerced into joining a private military company.
"It was a horrible experience on the war front, and for many days after my return I had nightmares of drones dropping bombs and bullets whizzing and people shouting," Sufiyan told DW.
Sufiyan alleges to have been positioned at a camp some 50 kilometers (31 miles) inside Ukrainian territory along with Russian soldiers.
"If we protested, the officer commanding our unit fired nearby where we were standing to scare us. It is a miracle how I escaped death," he said.