South Africans dragged into Russia's war in Ukraine dig trenches, dodge bullets

By Tim Cocks

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 22 (Reuters) - South African father-of-three Dubandlela was overcome with pride when his 20-year-old son signed up in July to receive elite training as a VIP bodyguard in Russia.

Five months later, Dubandlela is in despair. His son had fallen for an alleged recruitment scam in which he and at least 16 other South African men say they were conscripted by an unspecified mercenary group and sent to join Russian forces in Ukraine. 

"I blame myself," Dubandlela, who had been unable to afford university fees for his son, told Reuters at his home in Durban on South Africa's eastern coast.

The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a written request for comment on the alleged scam or the current circumstances of the 17 South Africans. 

PICTURES FROM NEAR THE FRONT LINE

President Cyril Ramaphosa's spokesman Vincent Magwenya said the case was "receiving the highest possible attention."

"The process to retrieve those young men remains a very sensitive process," he said. "They are facing grave, grave danger to their lives and we are still in discussions with various authorities, both in Russia as well as in Ukraine, to see how we can free them from the situation they are in.

"In fact, the emphasis is more with the authorities in Russia and less so with the authorities in the Ukraine, because the information that we have is that they were bungled into the Russian military forces," he told a press briefing this month.

On Dubandlela's phone are photos that he said his son had sent earlier this month from what he said was a location near the front line in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas.

One shows his son in combat fatigues, awkwardly holding an AK-47 assault rifle. 

Another shows his son trying to sleep in his underwear on the concrete floor of a cupboard-sized basement after taking cover from Ukrainian drones. He looks so thin that his ribs are visible.

Dubandlela, 56, declined to let his full name or that of his son be used in this article over fears for his son's safety.

He said his son had told him that he and other South African recruits spent all day digging trenches in the freezing cold. 

"Sometimes there's no food, even for a week; sometimes no water," Dubandlela said. 

He said his son often cried on the phone. 

"'I want to come back home...Please, Daddy, talk to someone'," he quoted his son as saying.   

Reuters was unable to independently confirm some aspects of the accounts provided in interviews by Dubandlela and two South African recruits interviewed by telephone from Donbas.

Much of the Donbas region is now controlled by Russian forces and fighting has been heavy there since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE CONTRACTS

The scam that Dubandlela said ensnared his son came to light on November 6, when South Africa said it had received distress calls from 17 men aged between 20 and 39 who said they were trapped in Donbas. 

An investigation into the scam by an elite police unit known as "Hawks" focused on the alleged involvement of one of former President Jacob Zuma's daughters, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla. 

Zuma-Sambudla later resigned as lawmaker in the Umkhonto weSizwe opposition party led by her father. She has denied knowing of the scam. 

Zuma-Sambudla did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Her lawyer, Dali Mpofu, declined to comment.

In a police affidavit on November 24, she said she had been "a victim of deception". Her party told a press conference four days later that her resignation was not an admission of guilt, that it had nothing to do with the scam.

A police spokesperson said they are treating the probe, which is active and ongoing, as a suspected crime against the state, because it is unlawful for South Africans to provide unauthorised military assistance to foreign states, armed groups or mercenaries. 

Days after arriving in Russia on July 11, the 17 recruits were presented with contracts in Russian in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, two recruits told Reuters by telephone from Donbas.    

They were reluctant to sign, because there was no translator available, but said that Zuma-Sambudla, who was present, persuaded them to do so, saying they were contracts for security training, both recruits said.

Zuma-Sambudla did not respond to a Reuters request for comment about her presence at the meeting in Donbas.

When the recruits found out they were going to war, "we were shocked," one told Reuters by telephone from Donbas.

"THERE IS NO STRESS"

In August, both South African recruits said, they were told they were going to war.

WhatsApp exchanges shared with Reuters between one of the recruits and Zuma-Sambudla - on her verified account with her phone number and picture - show a message in which the recruit says "as we speak now, we are packing and preparing to move to war." 

"It's not the front line. They are just scaring you," comes the reply from a person whose identity Reuters could not establish, and an explanation that the recruits will "only patrol."

"Ok, now they are taking our stuff, like bank cards and phones," writes the recruit, who is told: "it's fine, there's no stress".

The recruit who shared the exchange with Reuters is a 40-year-old South African bodyguard with children of 17, 11 and 3 who declined to be identified for safety reasons. He said the exchanges with Zuma-Sambudla happened in the late morning of August 28. Zuma-Sambudla did not respond to Reuters' queries about the messages.

The man said he and the other recruits frequently had their phones taken off them and often ate just bread and tinned fish.

They loaded artillery shells into launchers, had basic military equipment and feared for their lives, he said. The man said he was in Donbas when Reuters last spoke to him on Dec. 18.

DEATH ON THE FRONT LINE  

It is not just South Africans who unwittingly ended up in Ukraine's war. Kenya said on Nov. 12 over 200 of its citizens were fighting for Russia in Ukraine, and that recruiting agencies were still actively working to lure more Kenyans into the conflict. Authorities in Botswana have said two men were duped into joining the war under false promises of jobs.

Russia's foreign ministry did not respond to a written request for comment. Russia does not comment on foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine.

Ukraine's foreign minister said last month that more than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries were fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia does not provide details of non-Russians fighting in Ukraine. 

Among those who went to fight, in August, was 22-year-old Kenyan David Kuloba. His mother, Susan, shared a copy of his contract in Russian with Reuters. 

David agreed to "voluntarily ... enter military service for the period stipulated by this contract period, ... be true to the military oath, selflessly serve the Russian people, and courageously and capably defend the Russian Federation," the contract states.

When he realised he would be sent to Ukraine, he reassured his mother he'd be safe, she told Reuters. 

That was the last she heard from him. 

Responding on Friday to Reuters questions on David's whereabouts, a spokesperson for the Kenyan foreign ministry said "investigations are still ongoing and multi-agency-led (so) we can are only await more details."

Yet on September 30, Susan received a voice message from one of David's fellow combatants on WhatsApp who had witnessed what happened: David was killed in an explosion on the front line.

(Additional reporting by Sisipho Skweyiya in Durban, Siyabonga Sishi, Nqobile Dludla and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg, Vincent Mumo Nzilani in Nairobi, Brian Benza in Gaborone and the Moscow newsroom, Editing by Silvia Aloisi and Timothy Heritage)