Fifteen South African men duped into fighting for Russia in Ukraine have come back home, government officials said Thursday.
The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, said in an interview that the return of the men came two weeks after he spoke with President Vladimir V. Putin by phone and secured a promise of their release. The Russian leader assured him that they would be paid for their work, he said.
“Putin really would have given an order that those young men must be taken back,” Mr. Ramaphosa said.
Two other South Africans were killed on the battlefield, government officials said, though it was unclear how they had ended up there.
With the war in Ukraine now in its fifth year, both sides face extraordinary levels of casualties — and the need for more soldiers.
Reports of African men being recruited for work abroad only to end up on the front lines in Ukraine have surfaced from South Africa, Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa.
“We clearly see that Russia is trying to drag African citizens into death and war,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said at a news conference in Kyiv on Thursday. “More than 1,780 citizens from the African continent are currently fighting in the Russian army.”
Mr. Sybiha, who was joined by Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said Russia had pressed soldiers from 36 countries in Africa into military service. Their participation “in hostilities on the side of Russia is a major challenge,” he said.
Mr. Ablakwa pleaded for the release of two Ghanaians captured by Ukraine who he said had been tricked into fighting for Russia. “They are victims of manipulation, of disinformation, misinformation of criminal trafficking networks,” he said.
In November, the South African authorities said they had received “distress calls” from 17 men trapped on the front line in Ukraine’s Donbas region after being duped into joining Russian mercenary forces. With the return of the 15 South Africans earlier this week, two of those 17 remain in Russia. One is in a hospital in Moscow, while the other is finalizing his travel arrangements, Mr. Ramaphosa said.
The men who were killed were part of another group, said the South African foreign affairs minister, Ronald Lamola. “Most or all South Africans have now been released from the front line,” he said.
The 17 men accused a daughter of former President Jacob Zuma of conning them into fighting for Russia. Mr. Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla has also been accused by one of her own sisters of tricking the men, eight of them her own family members.
Ms. Zuma-Sambudla has denied the allegations, claiming in turn that she, too, was duped. She said she was a victim of fraud by intermediaries. After her role was disclosed, her political party, Spear of the Nation, announced that she had resigned from her seat.
South African law criminalizes serving in a foreign military without the government’s approval. Mr. Ramaphosa said investigations were continuing.
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