Zimbabwean Daniel Pomo Was Promised Apple-Picking Work in Russia. He Was Sent to War Instead.

Daniel Pomo, a 42-year-old from Zimbabwe, was told he'd be picking apples on a Russian farm for $700-800 a month. Instead he was sent to the front line, where after days of walking the contact line he laid down his weapon and surrendered. Ukraine's 425th Regiment captured him and published his account on youtube: 

The Offer

Pomo had worked as a provincial administrative officer for Zimbabwe's Ministry of Education in Bulawayo before moving to South Africa, where he worked as a hotel barman while studying sales and marketing at the University of South Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic forced him back to Zimbabwe; when he returned to South Africa to finish his degree, he found himself living through a wave of xenophobic violence in Soweto. A friend, Farai, put him in touch with an agent in Russia named Boris, who said he could arrange farm work picking apples. The pay on offer - $700-800 a month - was several times what Pomo had earned in Zimbabwe, and he has a wife and child to support. Boris paid for his flight and his accommodation.

Signing What He Couldn't Read

The plan fell apart as soon as Pomo landed in Moscow. A different man, Michael, met him at the airport, and from there, in his own words, "everything started going in a completely different direction than I expected." After a day in Moscow he was moved to Khanty-Mansiysk, where he was taken through a series of offices - told at some stops it was for biometrics, at others that he needed Russian citizenship. He says he was handed documents and told simply to sign, with no translation and no explanation of what they were. "If everything had been fair, I should have been given a contract written in English so I could read and understand it," he said. He was then bused for three or four days to another city, where Russian military vehicles picked the group up and took them to a training camp.

Under Guard, Then Sent Out

At the camp, Pomo was trained on radios, weapons, and grenades. He describes being under constant escort - to meals, to the toilet, to sleep - and locked into a dugout at night with no way to leave. The group was told they'd go on a single assignment and then never be sent out again. Before that assignment, he watched his own bag - packed with diplomas and certificates he'd brought from Zimbabwe, hoping to use them for a better job later - thrown out into the grass. "You worked so hard for those diplomas and all those documents, and they just threw them away," he said. He now believes it was because his handlers already knew he wasn't coming back.

He also says a Russian bank account was opened in his name and that more than 2.6 million rubles, plus another 400,000, moved through it - withdrawn as soon as it arrived, through a second phone that Michael kept for himsel

Walking Toward the Sound of a Generator

Sent out on the assignment, Pomo walked alone for days along the contact line, taking commands over the radio while others in the group went a different direction; he says he didn't know the route or the destination, and questions about it went unanswered. Running low on water, he heard a generator running nearby and tried repeatedly to radio that he could hear it, but couldn't get a response - he blamed a weak signal and rigged an extension to try to boost it. Following the sound, he came across a Ukrainian soldier first. The soldier raised his weapon; Pomo said, "No, please don't shoot," and the soldier ran off toward the generator and came back with another. Pomo repeated the request. He says he'd never seen Ukrainian soldiers up close before and didn't recognize their uniforms. Told to drop his weapon, he kicked it toward them; they secured his hands and asked if he was all right. He told them he was hungry and thirsty, having gone without water for days on the walk. They gave him food, water, and, he says, chocolate.

"I Want to Thank Him"

Pomo singles out the first soldier he encountered for thanks, calling him "an angel" - if either side had reacted differently in that first moment, he says, he could have been shot. He describes the soldiers who took him in as treating him well, sharing their own food and supplies with him despite him having arrived as an enemy combatant.

His message to others being offered the same kind of work: the job offers are lies, and anyone who accepts one will be taken into the army and made to sign a contract they don't understand. He points to his own bank records as evidence that his handlers knew from the start he wouldn't be coming home. "Never do this. Don't even think about going to Russia," he said, "because you won't come back home."

A Safe Way Out

Zimbabweans and other foreign nationals lured into Russia's armed forces have an option to safely escape the battlefield with Ukraine's "I Want to Live" project. Find out more about how servicemen in Russia's army can save their lives here.