Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla

Date of birth: 20 May 1982

Nationality: South African

Known for: Daughter of former South African president Jacob Zuma; twin sister of Duduzane Zuma

Former position: Member of the National Assembly of South Africa (June 2024 - November 2025), representing the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, was expelled on 18 June 2026

Legal status: Under police investigation - contraventions of the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, fraud, and trafficking in persons

What She Did

Zuma-Sambudla recruited at least 17 South African men - many from Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal, the home region of the Zuma family - to travel to Russia under the pretext of security training and VIP bodyguard work. The men were told they would not be sent to war. They were sent to the front line in Ukraine's Donbas region.

According to recruits who spoke to Al Jazeera, Zuma-Sambudla and her stepmother were at the forefront of the recruitment drive. She allegedly posed as being in Russia to "receive" the men and maintained a WhatsApp group with them in which she claimed to be present on the front line. She never left South Africa.

Families of the recruits say she and her associates were paid at least 14 million rand (~$845,000) by Russia's Wagner Group for securing the men's participation.

Upon arrival in Russia, the recruits were issued military uniforms, given barely a week of basic drills, and deployed to the front. They described being used as cannon fodder - sent into the most dangerous positions, forced to retrieve the dead and injured under active drone fire, and subjected to racial abuse by Russian forces. At the start of their contracts they were each paid a lump sum of 80,000 rand (~$4,800), which many immediately transferred home, believing they would not survive. On arrival they were ordered to burn their clothing, documents, and family photos.

Two South Africans died. One returned in a wheelchair. Another lost a leg in a drone strike and was left in a Russian hospital. Eleven were eventually repatriated in February 2026 after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa personally contacted Vladimir Putin to secure their release.

Zuma-Sambudla resigned from the National Assembly on 28 November 2025 as the allegations became public and South African police opened an investigation against her. In her statement to police, she claimed to have been a victim herself - alleging she was deceived by promises of lucrative security contracts. The families of the men she recruited dispute this account.

A 2023 report by the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience had earlier identified Zuma-Sambudla as central to a Russian-backed social media campaign promoting support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in South Africa.

She was expelled from the MK Party on 18 June 2026 - not directly for the recruitment scandal, but for a series of internal party violations including factionalism, defying party leadership, and conduct surrounding the death of a fellow MP.

South Africa's Hawks (Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation) have confirmed that 15 men connected to the broader recruitment network are under investigation. A separate group of five suspects - unrelated to Zuma-Sambudla directly - was arrested in Gauteng in late 2025 on charges of fraud, trafficking in persons, and contravening the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

"Our children were sold off," said one parent of a recruit. "They were promised jobs, but instead they were used."