-By LeN Defence Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -12.April.2025, 9.35 PM) Moscow - When three Sri Lankan men arrived at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport last week, they hoped to leave behind the bitter cold and even colder betrayal of a war they never signed up to fight. Instead, they were detained at the immigration counter, their passports seized, and their intentions questioned. Their crime? Attempting to flee the Russian military frontlines in Ukraine where they had been deployed as cannon fodder.
Eventually, after diplomatic intervention and quiet pressure from Colombo, the three were released and returned to Sri Lanka on April 10, 2025. But their brief detention at Moscow’s most secure airport has revealed a much larger and darker truth: Sri Lankan nationals, both civilian and military, have been covertly recruited into Russia’s war machine—often lured by promises of money, citizenship, and a better life.
What they found instead were minefields, drones, unrelenting artillery fire—and death.
The three men detained in Moscow were among thousands of Sri Lankans reportedly recruited over the last 18 months to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Initially promised logistical roles, support jobs, or non-combat postings, they were quickly handed weapons and sent to the frontlines—often without proper training, equipment, or briefing.
“Once we arrived, everything changed,” one of the returnees, speaking under anonymity, told the Sunday Military Review. “There was no citizenship. There were no salaries. Just an order: pick up your gun and march into Ukraine.”
Russian agencies and private recruitment brokers—some operating under the guise of “employment consultancies”—have been accused of targeting economically vulnerable and militarily experienced Sri Lankans. Many of the recruited individuals are believed to be former soldiers from the Sri Lankan Army, some of whom left service prematurely or were lured with offers of USD 2,000 monthly salaries, settlement rights in Russia, and pension benefits.
The bait worked.
According to unofficial intelligence shared by a senior official within the Ministry of Defence, as many as 5,000 Sri Lankans may have been recruited into Russian service, either formally through military contracts or informally via paramilitary units operating under Russian command.
Exact casualty figures are hard to verify. Russia does not publicly disclose foreign soldier deaths, and Sri Lankan diplomatic channels in Moscow remain limited in scope and reach. However, the Defence Ministry confirms that at least 186 Sri Lankan nationals have been confirmed dead in Ukraine, while 60 remain missing in action.
Families in Kurunegala, Anuradhapura, Galle, and even Jaffna have reported receiving cryptic calls from abroad: a single message, often in broken English or Russian, notifying them that their son or husband has “died in action.” In most cases, there is no body. No death certificate. No final goodbye.
The Sunday Military Review has spoken with five families, all of whom described the same pattern: A young man accepts an overseas job offer in Russia, travels legally or semi-legally, loses contact after reaching the Russian border, and months later, the silence is shattered by a phone call—or a photo of a grave somewhere near Donetsk.
Many of the dead were deployed in hazardous roles: demining fields without proper gear, assaulting fortified Ukrainian bunkers, or holding ground under relentless drone fire. Sri Lankan veterans are known for their expertise in jungle and trench warfare, a legacy of decades of counterinsurgency during the civil war. But they were unprepared for drone swarms, electronic warfare, and the freezing Ukrainian winters.
The Russian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, in a carefully worded press conference, downplayed the situation, referring to these combatants as “volunteers who chose to support a friendly nation.”
But critics, including human rights groups and military analysts, are calling that statement a diplomatic smokescreen.
“These are not volunteers,” says Brigadier (Retd.) Asela Wickramaratne, a former Defence Attaché in Moscow. “They are desperate men. They were promised a future, and they were given death. To classify them as ‘volunteers’ is a distortion of reality—and an insult to their families.”
Some of the recruits were even misled to believe they would be working in Russian-controlled territories as security guards, construction workers, or logistics staff. But once inside Russia or Belarus, their documents were seized and they were shipped off to the frontlines in Ukraine.
While the bulk of attention has focused on those fighting for Russia, intelligence sources have also confirmed that over 2,000 Sri Lankan nationals have joined the Ukrainian side—primarily through the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine.
Motivated by ideology, anti-authoritarian beliefs, or better-organized recruitment channels, these men are also fighting a deadly war. Some are former special forces operators, others are civilian volunteers. For now, Ukraine has maintained a more open relationship with foreign fighters, offering clear contracts and tracking fatalities.
However, the Sri Lankan government maintains that participation on either side is illegal under domestic law. The Defence Secretary, General D. Dissanayake, issued a nationwide notice in March 2025 warning that any military personnel—serving or retired—found to be participating in foreign military conflicts would face prosecution.
At the heart of this crisis lies a growing shadow economy: a network of brokers, visa agents, and fake recruiters profiting from the export of mercenaries. Since January 2025, seven individuals have been arrested across Sri Lanka in connection with facilitating travel and recruitment for war participation in Ukraine and Russia.
Their operations are complex. Often the recruits are taken to the Middle East or Eastern Europe first—under the guise of legitimate work—before being rerouted into Russian territory. Some are smuggled in through Belarus, others directly into occupied Ukrainian zones.
“There is a whole industry of war profiteers in Sri Lanka,” says a senior CID investigator involved in the crackdown. “They prey on our veterans, promise them the world, and deliver them to a battlefield with no way home.”
The National People’s Power (NPP)-led government has taken an uncompromising position. A special task force under the Ministry of Defence has begun compiling a list of missing or unaccounted-for former military personnel. Passport controls have been tightened, and all military-aged men departing Sri Lanka are now flagged for secondary screening.
Additionally, coordination has increased with foreign embassies and INTERPOL to track rogue agents and monitor online recruitment platforms.
“We will not allow our citizens to be exported as mercenaries,” said Minister of Defence Anura Pathirana in a recent parliamentary address. “We did not spend decades building a disciplined military just to see it auctioned off in someone else’s war.”
The government is also reportedly working with international partners to bring home the remains of deceased soldiers—although success has been limited.
In Gampaha, the Fernando family still waits for news of their son, Private Nimal Fernando, a 32-year-old former army gunner who left for Russia in late 2023. His last message came from a location near Mariupol. Since then, nothing.
“We were told he would be working in a warehouse,” says his mother, Chandrika. “Now they say he died in a forest full of landmines. But we’ve seen no body. No proof. Just silence.”
The family has made repeated visits to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Defence Ministry. So far, all they have received is an acknowledgment—and a photograph of a mass grave circulated by Ukrainian media.
As of April 2025, the geopolitical ramifications of Sri Lankan involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war are growing. While Sri Lanka has officially taken a non-aligned stance, these revelations risk upsetting both Moscow and Kyiv. Moreover, they challenge the integrity of Sri Lanka’s post-war military, its labor export framework, and its broader foreign policy.
Diplomatically, Sri Lanka must now negotiate the safe return of nationals trapped in warzones, while also managing the optics of being seen as a mercenary-exporting country. Legally, prosecutions loom—for the recruiters, for the fighters, and possibly even for complicit state actors.
And ethically, the country must answer a darker question: How did we let desperation turn our heroes into hired guns?
The three men detained at Moscow airport were lucky. They returned. They escaped a war that was not theirs, walked out of a land that had used them, and lived to tell the tale.
But for the hundreds who didn’t—and the thousands still trapped—this war is far from over.
-By LeN Defence Correspondent
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by (2025-04-12 16:39:46)
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