Pressure Works: Russia Suspends Recruitment in 39 Countries as "I Want to Live" Exposes Global Scheme

The Kremlin wages war with other people's lives - sending foreign nationals to kill and be killed in Ukraine. Many have no clear idea where they are actually going. Once inside the Russian armed forces, these so-called volunteers are treated as disposable - thrown without hesitation into human wave assault operations.

The most effective way to fight this is to make it visible. The more Russia's recruitment schemes are covered and discussed, the harder they are to run. When media picks up the story, when families of deceived recruits take to the streets, when politicians put it on the agenda - it produces results.

Over the past year, the "I Want to Live" project published more than 100 reports documenting how Russia sends foreign nationals to their deaths. 32 lists have been made publicly available, covering over 14,000 named foreign nationals recruited into the Russian armed forces.

The project has also collaborated with dozens of international media outlets and investigative teams, sharing data on recruitment networks operating across multiple countries. Journalists have visited POW camps in Ukraine and spoken directly with foreign nationals from 48 countries now held as prisoners of war. This is sustained pressure - public and political. It forces governments to respond and push back against recruitment, and forces Russia to scale back its operations. According to sources inside the Russian army, the Russian General Staff has already suspended recruitment of citizens from 39 countries.

Key investigations produced with "I Want to Live" data:

"The Russian Trap" (Masrawy) - an award-winning series by journalist Sara Abo Shady exposing recruitment networks targeting Egyptian and Yemeni nationals, including a network led by Polina Azarnykh. Egypt tightened its travel rules to Russia following publication.
Part 1 | Part 2

Truth Hounds - a global study documenting Russia's shift from recruiting volunteers to coercively and deceptively targeting vulnerable people from over 130 countries, framed as human trafficking and exploitation.
Full report

OCCRP - investigation into the scale and tools of foreign fighter recruitment using Ukrainian data.
Full report

All Eyes On Wagner - documents the recruitment of over 1,400 Africans through fake agencies and social media. At least 316 confirmed dead.
Read more

I Want to Live continues to document, publish, and expose. Visibility directly reduces the scale and effectiveness of Russia's recruitment operations. We remind that foreign nationals trapped in Russian army recruitment schemes can contact the "I Want to Live" project through Telegram at @kak_sdatsya_bot. The initiative helps Russian prisoners of war and foreign fighters surrender safely to Ukrainian forces.