Foreigners tricked into Vlad’s army

Dozens of Indian citizens and thousand of Nepalese nationals have been lured to Russia with bogus promises of well-paying jobs and even citizenship — only to be dragged into the army and sent to fight on the front lines in Ukraine with minimal training, say family members.

Mohammad Afsan, a 30year-old clothes salesman from Hyderabad, India, had traveled to Russia in November, recruited by an agent on a popular YouTube channel to work as a security guard or a helper, reported The Statesmen.

Afsan, who has a wife and two children, was promised a monthly salary of nearly $550 for the first three months and Russian citizenship after a year.

But once he arrived in Moscow, Afsan was allegedly coerced into joining the army and shipped off to the Russia-Ukraine border, where he was shot dead in combat, the Indian Embassy confirmed on Wednesday.

“He had no idea he was being sent to a war zone,” Afsan’s brother, Mohammad Imran, told The Guardian.

Afsan is at least the second known Indian citizen killed in action in Ukraine, after being allegedly tricked into fighting for Russia.

Last month, Hemil Ashwinbhai Mangukiya, 23, from Gujarat, was killed in an airstrike in Ukraine.

Like Afsan, Mangukiya had been recruited through the YouTube channel Baba Vlogs, boasting 300,000 subscribers, for a security job in Russia — but instead he was sent to war, never to return.

Earlier this week, a video went viral showing seven men from Punjab claiming to have been tricked into fighting for Russia — and begging the Indian government to bring them home.

Indian nationals are not the only foreigners believed to be participating — either voluntarily or against their will — in Russia’s war.

It has been reported that 15,000 Nepali men have joined the Kremlin’s army. The majority of the recruits hail from poor villages where job opportunities are scant.

In many cases, the desperate men say they were lured by agents with false promises of high-salaried jobs not involving combat.