Promise of jobs in Russia takes Peruvians to the front in Ukraine

The last time Norma saw her son was at the end of January, when she dropped him off at an airport in Lima, the capital of Peru. He told him that he had gotten a job as a cook for the Russian Army advertised on social media, guaranteeing that he would be away from the war in Ukraine, earn good money and even have the chance to obtain Russian citizenship.

Norma was immediately suspicious. His 31-year-old son had never left Peru before and had not even held a gun. (CNN is not publishing Norma's full name or that of her son to protect them from reprisals.)

"I wanted to lock him in the house, but he had already made a decision," Norma told CNN. She even considered calling the police. "He told me: 'Mom, please understand, I'm only going as a cook'. But a mother's heart knows, otherwise I wouldn't have felt so anxious."

When she dropped him off at the airport, Norma saw that there were others waiting to fly to Russia as well. She tried to question them, but they refused to talk to her.

"My son asked me not to embarrass him, that I had to believe in him, that he would only work as a cook," she said. "He left me heartbroken. Something told me something was wrong. I said goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him."

His instincts were correct. Before long, Norma received videos from her son that showed the true nature of the work. He had joined the ranks of hundreds of Peruvian men who were reportedly lured into the Russian military by local recruiters and social media advertisements with promises of lucrative employment in Russia, only to find themselves fighting on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Shortly after Norma's son joined, he sent his mother images of himself in combat gear, digging trenches and building pine shelters with other foreign fighters in a Ukrainian forest, videos she shared with CNN.

In the sporadic calls Norma had with her son and the video messages he sent, she could hear drones exploding in the background, even though he assured her they were far away.

The videos soon stopped arriving in early April, when Norma's son said he was being "punished" by a commander for bad behavior.

"I said, 'That's a lie, you're going to fight on the front lines,'" she recalled. "He told me to calm down. And I haven't heard from him since that day."

"I have this glimmer of hope that he's somewhere, hiding in a trench, but I really don't know."

"Cannon fodder"
As Russia's war in Ukraine drags on, the Russian military has made great efforts to increase its ranks, including recruiting foreign fighters from developing countries with promises of high salaries and bonuses.

In February, CNN reported that numerous men from African countries were forced into military service in Russia after being offered high-paying civilian jobs as drivers or security guards.

A dozen men who spoke to CNN said that shortly after arriving in Russia, they were forced to sign contracts in Russian, received minimal training and were sent into combat.

Several countries protested against Russian conscription. Kenya's foreign minister traveled to Moscow in March to demand that Russia stop recruiting Kenyans, describing the network bringing Kenyan citizens to Russia as a human trafficking ring. The Russian Embassy in Nairobi called the allegations "dangerous and misleading" in a statement to Deutsche Welle.

After thousands of Nepali citizens volunteered to fight for Russia, Nepal banned any travel to Ukraine or Russia for work reasons.

The stories of the Peruvian recruits and their families are similar. CNN spoke to 12 families who have been protesting for weeks in front of the Russian Embassy in Lima and the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, awaiting answers about the whereabouts of their family members.

Many of the men come from impoverished backgrounds and know little about what might await them in Russia.

Pedro Bravo, director of Peruvian Communities Abroad at the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CNN that many recruits "have limited resources and are in urgent need" of money. "They don't have a very clear understanding of the international reality," Bravo said. "It's much easier to fool them."

Rosa, a mother of three who asked CNN not to use her last name, said her 48-year-old husband traveled to Russia along with several other Peruvians, hoping to get work as a security guard. He had worked as a correctional officer in Lima, but Rosa said her husband had no military experience before applying through a local recruiter in Peru.

CNN viewed and analyzed WhatsApp messages between Rosa's husband and a Spanish-speaking recruiter nicknamed "Vizio." The messages show that he agreed to "enlist in the Army of the Russian Federation" on a one-year contract.

The recruiter, who declined to be interviewed and declined to provide CNN with his real name when contacted, told Rosa's husband that he would have health and life insurance and that he would be repatriated to Peru if he was injured.

Rosa insists that her husband did not know he would be sent to war.

"They never told him he was going to go to war, that he would have to sacrifice his life, that he wouldn't get paid. He wouldn't have gone there," she told CNN in a phone interview.

After traveling to Russia, the messages that Rosa's husband sent home sounded reassuring. But they soon became fragmented, and he often deleted the messages just moments after sending them.

"He told me: 'I think they brought us to war. This is hell,'" said Rosa. Other messages described starvation, harsh military training, constant drone attacks and recruits punished for not understanding orders in Russian.

On March 26, he told Rosa he would be transferred again and was ordered to collect his weapons and belongings. "He told me, 'I love you all so much. You will always be in my heart,'" Rosa recalled.

She hasn't received any messages from him since. Several of his companions have told Rosa that he died in a drone strike, but she is still convinced that he is alive. "They took them there like cannon fodder, as if their lives were worthless," Rosa said, crying. "I have three children who cry day and night for their father."

CNN has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

The issue caught the government's attention, and Peru's prosecutor's office announced last month that the government is investigating Russian recruitment, which it described as "human trafficking."

Percy Salinas, an attorney representing some of the recruits' families, provided CNN with a copy of a tax order outlining the scope of the court case.

Authorities are investigating 36 reports from Peruvian citizens who claim that their family or friends were deceived "through false job offers abroad, specifically in the Russian Federation, with the aim of transporting them out of the country and subjecting them to... forced participation in an armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine," according to the order.

The prosecution declined to comment on the case when contacted by CNN.

Bravo, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CNN that the Peruvian government made at least 247 separate requests to Moscow for information about Peruvians in the Russian military and demanded "the immediate and safe return of our compatriots to their country of origin, given that they left without due authorization."

Russia stated that it "deeply respects the decision of foreign citizens to participate in the defense of (Russian) sovereignty and security."

"The embassy reaffirms its permanent willingness to take all necessary measures to obtain information as quickly as possible based on formally presented requests," the Russian Embassy in Lima said in an April statement regarding the "concerns of Peruvian families."

Human trafficking or human error?
Salinas, a lawyer representing the families of recruits, estimates that there are currently at least 800 Peruvians fighting for Russia, many of whom signed up with the promise of high salaries.

"The ultimate reason many families made the decision, and the men traveled to Russia, was an economic reason," Salinas told CNN. "A $20,000 bonus upon signing the contract and very eye-catching salaries of $3,000 or $4,000."

Most never receive the promised money, said the lawyer. Numerous family members told CNN that their relatives in the Russian military were unable to send money, even after they had already started receiving a salary.

Salinas acknowledged that there is an element of "personal responsibility" for men who signed contracts with the Army, but insisted that the majority of Peruvians fighting for Russia were "lured through deception."

"This falls into the category of human trafficking, and this is a human rights issue," Salinas said. "Because Peruvians were lured here under false promises of work, and this could eventually lead to their death."

A Peruvian soldier currently stationed in Russian-occupied Ukraine told a similar story to CNN.

"I made the decision to come here because of the job I was offered; I was paid better than what you earn in Peru, and I was told I would work as a security guard in Moscow," said Guillermo, a 28-year-old Peruvian Army veteran from Lima.

CNN changed its name to protect it from reprisals. "I've been enlisted for three and a half months and I honestly want to go back to Peru."

Guillermo told CNN that he and a friend were recruited by Pocho Wilson Pinto Peña, a reserve officer in the Peruvian armed forces.

Upon arriving in Russia, Guillermo said his new superiors confiscated his phone and "practically forced" him to sign a contract in Russian that they did not allow him to translate.

CNN reviewed a copy of the contract, as well as several others provided by the recruits' families. All were standard one-year contracts with the Russian military, similar to what foreign recruits from other countries sign. (Pinto's name does not appear on any of the contracts CNN reviewed).

Pinto told CNN that he had not recruited Peruvian men for the war in Russia, but had only provided the phone number of another Peruvian recruiter in Russia, whom he declined to name. He stated that the men who enlisted knew exactly where they were going, or at least should have known.

The recruiter "told me he just needed staff, not what exactly," Pinto said. "But the country is at war, so logically, as a soldier, I would know where they are taking me."

Pinto said he had warned the men he connected to the recruiter that they might be sent to the front lines and gave them advice such as: "if a drone comes, you should get down."

"It makes me very sad that maybe other people lied to them," Pinto added. He said he even accompanied a distressed family to the Russian embassy in Lima to ask about their family members. Pinto is aware of the prosecutor's investigation into recruitment in Peru, which mentions a recruiter named "Pocho", and considers the accusation of human trafficking "absurd."

"I am not involved in any human trafficking, I am an honest man," said Pinto. "I'm completely clear and honest, I've never been involved in any of this."

From occupied Ukraine, Guillermo told CNN that his life is dark. The friend he had enlisted with had been killed in action the previous month.

"I'm completely abandoned," said Guillermo. "I have no food, no medicine, I was injured in a drone attack and my kneecap is broken."

"My daily routine is carrying cold food boxes or other types of boxes," he continued. "I do all this with the help of a cane. When I do this kind of work at night, I can't sleep because my knee swells up so much and it hurts. All I want is to go home."

Guillermo said he tried to get help from the Peruvian embassy, but was told they "couldn't help him": he had signed a contract.

Bravo, the diaspora director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CNN that the Peruvian government's hands are tied. "What do I do when the person who says they have a knee injury is on the front line? I can't go to the front line and get them out," Bravo said. "That possibility simply doesn't exist."

Once Peruvian soldiers sign their contracts, Bravo added, "the situation becomes very difficult when it comes to locating them."

Guillermo knows this. He is painfully aware that his situation seems hopeless. "I'm going to leave here dead in action or simply dead," said Guillermo. "I have no way out."

Source: CNN