When Kenneth Kakuru left his home in Kawuku, Entebbe, on November 23, 2025, he believed he was travelling to Russia for a driving job that promised a monthly salary of $6,000 (about Shs 21 million).
Like dozens of other former security guards and drivers who had worked in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia between 2007 and 2013, Kakuru hoped the opportunity would lift his family out of poverty. Instead, his family says he disappeared after being deployed to the Russia-Ukraine warfront.
His wife, Anthens Ankunda and his twin brother both get teary when they narrate the circumstances under which he left.
“He had been without a job for a long time, and the going had become tough for us. We were under constant harassment from local loan sharks because he used to borrow money from them to buy necessities,” Ankunda says.
“On November 23, he came home panting and started packing his clothes in a hurry. He told me that he had secured a job which would earn him $6,000 per month. He said, ‘my wife, I have to go. This opportunity will make poverty history in our home.’ Those were the last words he said as he left,” Ankunda said.
Ankunda says Kakuru left Uganda by bus to Juba, where he boarded a flight to Istanbul before finally landing in Moscow with 15 other Ugandans, mainly those who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan as security guards.
Upon reaching Moscow, Kakuru sent WhatsApp audio messages to his wife, indicating that they had been driven to a military camp and that what he was being told to do was a job different from what he had been promised.
“He told me that they had been given contracts drafted in the Russian language to sign, after which they were subjected to military training. He would appear online for 30 minutes every morning and then disappear,” Ankunda, a mother of three, told The Observer.
After three weeks, Kakuru asked Ankunda to open an account in Centenary Bank where his first wages would be remitted.
“I told my husband that the children had been sent away from school because of non-payment of school fees. However, he told me that his first wages would be deposited on the account in a week’s time, but added that he had been driven to a faraway place. He asked me to pray for him. He gave me a contact of a woman called Anna and said she would facilitate the remittance of the money. He also said in case anything happens to him, Anna should be the one to help me in settling the compensation. Indeed, I communicated with Anna, and she assured me that the money would be paid after a week,” Ankunda told The Observer.
After a week, Ankunda checked the account, and there was no money yet; the children needed food, school fees and other necessities.
“I was disappointed when I found the account empty. But what worried me most was my husband going silent forever. The chats stopped, meaning that something bad could have happened to him. He could have been captured, killed or injured because I no longer hear from him,” Ankunda, who last chatted with the husband in February, explained.
Ankunda is now struggling to raise her three children, who are between the ages of three months and 10 years, without knowing what happened to the husband. She says two of the school-going children have dropped out due to lack of fees.
She appeals to the governments of Uganda and Russia to help her find out what happened to her husband. Caroline Mukiza, a resident of Nansana in Wakiso district, is another mother who has gone for months without hearing from her husband, who also flew to Russia in search of greener pastures.
She is battling depression after she received images of her husband’s severed body via social media.
“I alerted through Facebook that my husband had been killed in Ukraine. Images of his severed body were sent to me. I was devastated. I have tried to ask the government for help, but I was told that I could not be helped because my husband left the country through illegal channels. He was the sole breadwinner at home. I do not know how I will take care of the children in the absence of their father,” she said.
Woman threatened
For Miriam Musisi, a resident of Migadde, near Kigogwa in Wakiso district, the uncertainty surrounding her husband’s disappearance has been compounded by fear.
Her husband, Charles Musisi, had previously worked as a driver in Iraq during the American occupation before returning to Uganda and investing his savings in a tipper truck and rental properties.
“The tipper and our four rentals had been our source of livelihood until my husband’s colleague told him about a $6,000 driving job in Russia,” Miriam says.
To finance the trip, Musisi sold his truck before leaving Uganda on December 23, 2025, together with about 20 colleagues. Weeks later, he contacted his wife through WhatsApp with disturbing news.
“He was forced to sign contracts in Russian and wear a military uniform. He told me that he and other Africans were being taken through military drills in preparation for deployment at the war frontline in Ukraine,” she said.
Before deployment, Musisi gave his wife the contact of a man identified as Dimitri, saying he would facilitate payment of his wages and assist the family if anything happened to him.
“At first Dimitri said my husband was alive and he promised to link him up with me. After about two weeks, I started putting him under pressure to produce my husband. In response, he threatened me. He told me that he was well connected in the Ugandan government and that it would take him less than a day to have me eliminated. He showed me photos where he was posing with ministers and some security officials,” she said.
She later discovered that all their WhatsApp and Instagram conversations had disappeared from her phone.
“I checked my phone and found all my chats with him missing. I don’t know the technology that he used to delete the messages. This incident made me think that indeed, he could track me down as he had promised. I briefly put away my phones and left my home. I went to my parents’ home, where I stayed for two months. Even now I am scared.”
Miriam is now raising six children alone, including a baby born two months after her husband’s departure.
“This baby has never seen her father. I pray that he one day returns and reunites with us because he was our breadwinner. My school-going children are suffering. This term I managed to only raise money for requirements. I have not been able to clear school fees,” she said.
Recruiter changed travel route
Innocent Kato, Kakuru’s twin brother, says he narrowly missed joining the group because he was unwell when recruitment began.
He believes the organisers altered their travel route after Ugandan authorities intercepted an earlier group attempting to leave through Entebbe International Airport.
“The first batch of about 10 recruits was arrested at Entebbe Airport as they attempted to fly to Moscow. They had tickets, yellow fever cards and visas. They were in the company of a gentleman only identified as Dimitry. He had paid for the flights and visas. He was arrested, but later released. It seems when he was released, he arranged to have them travel through neighbouring countries because my brother’s group flew out through Juba Airport in South Sudan. From Juba, they flew to Istanbul before connecting to Moscow,” Kato said.
For months, Kato says he has moved from one government office to another seeking help, alongside relatives of more than 90 other missing Ugandans.
Earlier this month, the permanent secretary at the ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vincent Bagiire, wrote to Uganda’s ambassador to Russia, Moses Kizige, directing him to investigate allegations regarding the recruitment of Ugandans and to submit a report within seven days.
The letter also raised claims that two women, identified as Esther and Anna, were involved in recruiting Ugandans and handling their money. It further alleged that some Ugandans attempting to return home were being frustrated or reported to Russian authorities, while others were assisted by the Kenyan Embassy.
Ambassador acknowledges recruits
When contacted, Ambassador Moses Kizige acknowledged that Ugandans were serving at the warfront but denied claims that the embassy had facilitated their recruitment.
“I have met with a group of relatives of the Ugandans who were trafficked to Russia by a one Dimitry. They claim that there are two ladies, one called Esther and another one called Anna, who are involved in receiving money from Ugandans and also involved in recruitment,” Kizige said.
Kato rejected that explanation, arguing that the recruits were deceived into signing contracts they could not understand.
“What we want are our brothers who are trapped in this scheme to be rescued. They have not received the money that they were promised. Some died while others are injured in hospitals. All we want is to have them brought back home,” he said.
South Africans, Kenyans rescued
Also recruited to fight in Ukraine were young men from South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon. Following an outcry in Kenya, the country’s foreign affairs minister travelled to Russia in March and held talks with the defence minister Sergei Lavrov to repatriate its citizens.
Sitting beside Lavrov, Mudavadi said both sides had agreed that Kenyans would no longer be recruited through Russia’s defence ministry.
“They will no longer be eligible to be enlisted,” he said.
Lavrov insisted that all foreign fighters had joined voluntarily ”in full compliance with Russian law”.
A Kenyan intelligence report in February warned that more than 1,000 citizens had been recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine. In February, South Africa held talks with Russia and secured the release of 17 of its citizens who had been lured into fighting in Ukraine.
In a statement released by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office, he thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for helping to secure the return of 17 South Africans allegedly tricked into joining the Russia-Ukraine war.
In November, the South African government said it had received distress calls from the group of men who had joined mercenary forces in the conflict. The men believed they were going to Russia for bodyguard training but instead ended up on the front line of the war in Ukraine.
Working as a mercenary or fighting on behalf of another government is illegal in South Africa, unless the government authorises it. Relatives of the men told the BBC that when they had arrived in Russia, they were given contracts to sign, but as they were written in Russian, they did not understand that it was to fight as mercenaries against Ukrainian forces.
Ugandans appeal for rescue
In an audio recording obtained by The Observer, a Ugandan man identified only as Bukenya, who says he is receiving treatment in Russia after being wounded in a drone strike, appealed to the Ugandan government for assistance.
“I was injured by fragments in a drone strike that hit my group. We were driven to hospital and while there, a Russian colleague helped to call the embassy. My call was picked, but the embassy said it could not help because it was not involved in our coming to Russia. I appeal to the Government of Uganda to rescue us. Our colleagues from Kenya and South Africa were rescued. We also want to be rescued and go back home. I do not want to be taken back to Ukraine when I finish my treatment,” he said.
Relatives of the missing men say more than 100 Ugandans remain unaccounted for after travelling to Russia in search of employment, only to find themselves on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. They are now urging the Ugandan government to intervene before more lives are lost.
