A Eurasianet partner post from Mediazona Central Asia 

North Koreans may be the highest-profile mercenaries fighting for the Kremlin in the Russia-Ukraine war, but an investigation carried out by Eurasianet’s content partner Mediazona Central Asia shows that dozens of Uzbeks are also fighting and dying for Russia. While many Uzbeks who enlist in the Russian army do it for the money, the possibility of obtaining a Russian passport is another motivating factor.

In contrast to North Korea’s leadership, Uzbek authorities are actively discouraging Uzbek nationals from joining not just the Russian military, but all foreign armies. For example, on October 14, the Uzbek Consulate in the Tatarstan capital Kazan warned citizens against participating in military actions abroad. Such outreach efforts have reportedly vexed Russian officials, who are eager to fill their army’s ranks with men wherever they can find them.

In spite of official discouragement, Uzbeks, along with citizens of other Central Asian countries, are still fighting on the Russian-Ukrainian front. According to a Ukrainian website, titled Casualties, at least 20 Uzbek citizens fighting for Russia have been confirmed killed in action. Most of the dead were criminal convicts who took a shot at freedom by joining private military companies, such as Wagner Group. The BBC’s Russian service has reported the deaths of at least 34 Uzbeks in the war.

These are just estimates, however. No one has a complete picture, or official statistics. 

Uzbek authorities do not officially disclose data on the number of citizens killed, or on the number of those who participate in the hostilities in Ukraine. But local news reports concerning the criminal prosecution in Uzbekistan of citizens charged with engaging in mercenary activity shed some light on the situation.

Over the past year, at least six Uzbek citizens have been convicted in Uzbekistan for participating, or attempting to participate, in the Russia-Ukraine war. Those convicted range in age from 23 to 56. Under Uzbek law, the maximum penalty for mercenary activity is 10 years in prison. So far, none of those convicted this year has received a term of more than five years. All of this year’s convicts fought for Russia.

One individual convicted of mercenary activity was only identified as a 48-year-old former “Wagnerite” from Tashkent, tried in court under the name B.Z. In August, the court sentenced him to four years of restricted freedom, prohibiting him from leaving his home at night, or leaving the country. Despite his active participation in fighting, for which he received a medal “For the Liberation of Artemovsk,” B.Z. received a relatively lenient sentence. The court took into account mitigating factors, including the fact that he is raising minor children and helping his wife with a disability. In addition, B.Z. fully admitted his guilt.

According to the case materials, the convicted man enlisted out of a desire to improve his living conditions. In Tashkent, he lived in a two-room apartment with his wife, mother, younger sister and three children. Because of this, B.Z. and his wife had to sleep in the kitchen.

In 2022, the man went to work as a baker in Russia. There, after reading an advertisement for a PMC, he signed a contract, tempted by a salary of 240,000 rubles ($2,400) and other benefits. In May 2023, B.Z. joined the service, but after the Wagner Group rebellion in June 2023, followed by the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, his contract was terminated. The man received 467,000 rubles and was offered the chance to obtain a Russian passport if he agreed to serve in Africa. However, B.Z. refused and returned to his homeland, where he was detained.

Another individual convicted for mercenary activity is identified as 34-year-old Golib Aliyev, according to the Kun.uz news outlet. In 2016, Aliyev, who lived in Uzbekistan’s Namangan region, went to work in Russia, where he accidentally killed a citizen of Tajikistan during a fight. A Russian court sentenced him to 15 years in prison for manslaughter. In September 2022, Prigozhin visited the prison colony in the Tambov region where he was serving his sentence.

“He promised that those who signed a contract and returned alive would be paid 175,000 rubles a month (1.2mn rubles in total), and their criminal records would be expunged, and they would be granted Russian citizenship. About 700-800 prisoners agreed, and I decided to join to avoid prison,” Aliyev said during his trial in Uzbekistan.

In January 2023, Aliyev was wounded in the shoulder while climbing out of a trench in search of food. “I woke up in the hospital, where I lay for about 50 days and left on February 17, 2023. For this, I was paid 600,000 rubles,” Aliyev recalled. In March 2023, his contract with the Wagner Group expired and Aliyev was sent to Rostov, where he received a medal for courage under fire. At the end of the summer, he was also granted Russian citizenship.

That December, Aliyev returned to Uzbekistan. There, a criminal case was opened against him and he was sentenced to five years in prison. At the trial, Aliyev claimed that he agreed to fight only out of a desire to quickly return to his homeland. 

A similar story happened to 26-year-old Shavkat Yuldashev from Akhangaran. In 2019, he went to Russia to earn money, only to end up with a criminal conviction for drug trafficking. Having signed a contract with a private military contractor in October 2022, he spent six months at war, earning almost one million rubles and a medal. In August 2023, after returning to Uzbekistan, he was sentenced to correctional labour and withholding of 20% ​​of his earnings for the benefit of the state. Yuldashev claims that he did not participate in the fighting but was attached to a construction battalion in the Luhansk region.

Since the terrorist attack at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall music venue in March, Russia has adopted a dual approach towards Central Asian citizens. The government is acting to tighten rules covering Central Asian labour migrants. However, when it comes to the participation of Central Asian citizens in the war effort, the government adopts a very different stance.

Starting in mid-2023, according to Radio Azattyk, Russian authorities began using increasingly sophisticated methods of “recruitment.”

“Wherever you go, they start agitating for you to go to war. By law, this is mercenary [activity]. In the homeland [of a migrant], they can be imprisoned for this,” a migrant from Tajikistan living in Moscow told reporters.

In October, the mother of a young Uzbek convicted in Russia told reporters that in the colony her son was forced to enlist while facing threats and psychological pressure. The fact that Russia is purposefully recruiting migrants to be sent to fight in Ukraine was reported by Bloomberg in the summer. As journalists noted, in this way the authorities hope to avoid an unpopular move to order a general mobilisation, the prospect of which has already led to a massive outflow of the population.

During the summer, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, said that the Russian authorities identified 30,000 migrants who recently became citizens of Russia, but who did not register for military service. The official boasted that 10,000 of them had already been pressed into service and sent to the war to dig trenches and engage in rear-area work. 

How many of them are Uzbeks and how many of them will be convicted if they return to their homeland is an open question.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.