Dancan Chege left Kimende, a small town in Kenya’s Kiambu County, expecting to drive trucks in Russia. Within days, he says, he was wearing a Russian uniform in occupied Ukraine, his civilian clothes burned, and a trainer warning him and other recruits: “This is the Russian military, and once you are in, you either fight or die.”
Chege’s account mirrors a growing pattern across Kenya and parts of Africa: fraudulent recruitment funneling young men into the Russia-Ukraine war. Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS)…