Sky News journalists have claimed that around 2,000 Nepalese nationals have been recruited by Russia for the war in Ukraine. According to an interlocutor of the publication, the Russian military treated the Nepalese volunteers “like cannon fodder” and constantly beat and starved them.
British Sky News said that around 2,000 Nepalis have been recruited by Russia to join the war against Ukraine.
Journalists managed to speak to a 35-year-old Nepali named Ganesh, who spent four and a half months fighting in Donetsk before being able to return home.
He told reporters that the Nepali soldiers were treated “like cannon fodder” and that when they were sent to Ukraine, they didn’t have enough food and were constantly beaten by Russian soldiers.
“It was very scary. It wasn’t man-on-man, bullet-on-bullet fighting. We were attacked by drones and it was horrible,” Sky News quoted the interlocutor as saying.
The young man told the publication that he saw three Nepalese dead on the battlefield but heard of many other casualties.
Earlier, Reuters reported that about 100 Nepalese citizens are currently missing.
In December 2023, Nepalese authorities accused the Kremlin of recruiting their citizens for war under the pretext of “high-paying jobs.” Nepal demanded that Russia stop recruiting Nepalis into the Russian army, and also asked that the bodies of the dead be sent back to their homeland and compensation be paid to their families.
