Foreigners tricked into signing Russian military contracts tattooed with ID numbers before being sent to Ukraine front

Testimony has emerged that Russia deceived foreign nationals seeking employment into serving on the Ukraine front line, tattooing identification numbers onto their bodies to track them.

According to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, an Indonesian national named Ayok Sukamto was introduced to a construction job in Russia by an acquaintance and traveled to Moscow in June. There, he signed a contract written in Russian without receiving a translation, leaving him unaware of its contents. He later discovered it was an enlistment contract with Russia's Defense Ministry.

Ayok was put on a bus and taken to the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. He told the Yomiuri that he was forced to undergo military training there and lived in poor conditions with inadequate food and shelter.

Ayok said Russian forces tattooed an identification number — "CA-242436" — on his left chest to manage his identity.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry criticized the practice as similar to Nazi Germany's tattooing of identification numbers on Jewish prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Ayok attempted to desert but was caught and assaulted, after which he was forced to serve with Russian forces on the Zaporizhzhia front in southern Ukraine. When the Russian soldier guarding him was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike, Ayok made his way to a Ukrainian position, surrendered and was eventually able to return home.

Testimony about identification numbers being tattooed on foreign soldiers has surfaced before. Ukrainian authorities said earlier that prisoners from Yemen, Bangladesh and Burundi who were captured while fighting with Russian forces also had personal identification numbers tattooed on their chests.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, established by the UN Human Rights Council, said in a report submitted to the UN General Assembly last month that Russian authorities had deceived or coerced nationals from 29 countries into joining its military, characterizing the practice as human trafficking.

The commission examined enlistment cases involving nationals from 48 countries and confirmed evidence of deception or coercion in 29 of them, spanning Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. Countries included Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.

According to the report, victims were approached through SNS advertisements or local recruiters with offers of civilian jobs in Russia. They were promised high wages, Russian citizenship, comfortable accommodation and retirement pensions, but upon arriving in Russia received only minimal military training before being deployed to dangerous missions on the front lines.