List of countries demanding that Russia stop recruiting their citizens for the war against Ukra...

The list of countries demanding that Russia stop recruiting their citizens for the war against Ukraine continues to grow. Following India, Ghana, Nepal, Peru, Kenya and Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz authorities have sent a diplomatic note to the Russian Foreign Ministry to that effect.

Kyrgyzstan’s embassy in Russia has called for the return of 21-year-old Elistan Toktogulov, who was recruited into the Russian army “as a result of fraudulent actions by unidentified individuals.”

According to media reports, the young man responded to a social media advertisement posted by someone supposedly from Kyrgyzstan living in Russia. The person offered Toktogulov several civilian jobs in Russia, including as a security guard or driver, with a salary of 110,000 rubles. After Elistan arrived in Russia, he was tricked into signing a contract with the Defense Ministry and sent to a training ground in the Voronezh region to prepare for deployment to the front line.

Elistan was able to contact his family, who staged a picket in the city of Manas and recorded a video appeal asking the authorities to bring him home. The government in Bishkek soon called on Russia not only to release Toktogulov but also to investigate his recruitment.

Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry also advised its citizens “to carefully study the contents of contracts and other agreements before signing them, paying particular attention to the obligations they are undertaking and the legal consequences, in order to avoid possible negative consequences.”

The “I Want to Live” project says that nearly half of the foreign mercenaries in the Russian army are citizens of Central Asian countries. As of October 1, 2026, Russia had recruited 20,437 citizens of five Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan—for the war against Ukraine. That is 44% of the 45,959 identified foreign mercenaries in the Russian army.

➡️ Save your life and surrender: t.me/kak\sdatsya\bot The “I Want to Live” project on social media:😎 FB 🕊 Twitter 📹 YouTube 🥳TikTok🕊Instagram📞Viber 🏢WhatsApp (backup)

The Moscow Times Russian Service

Following Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan has begun demanding that Moscow return its citizens who were tricked into joining the Russian armed forces

Kyrgyzstan’s embassy in Russia has sent a note to the Russian Foreign Ministry calling for the return of a Kyrgyz citizen who was recruited into the Russian army to fight in Ukraine “as a result of fraudulent actions by unidentified individuals.”