Sergei Vyacheslavovich Merzlyakov
- Born
- March 13, 1984
Full name in Russian: Сергей Вячеславович Мерзляков
Russian tax id: 591604010942
Russian national id num: 5704506954
Legal status: UK-sanctioned May 5, 2026, designation GIM0054
Sergei Merzlyakov is a Perm-based businessman sanctioned by the UK for using a migrant-relocation network to funnel foreign nationals into Russia's war against Ukraine. According to an investigation by The Insider, Merzlyakov and his business partner, Iraqi-born Russian citizen Khalid Elameri, run a cluster of businesses that present themselves as offering migrants legal status, jobs, or education in Russia - but the path they actually offer is enlistment in Russia's armed forces, sold with promises of a fast-tracked Russian passport and cash bonuses. The UK's sanctions designation ties Merzlyakov to this recruitment pipeline as well as to earlier Kremlin-directed migration pressure operations against Finland and Poland.
The "Made in Russia24" project has spent more than two decades moving foreign nationals from Arab and African countries into Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, according to The Insider - originally through student visas issued via Perm Polytechnic University. Merzlyakov and Elameri began actively promoting the project's services on YouTube and Instagram starting in 2019. The Insider has separately reported that the same infrastructure was used in Kremlin-directed migration pressure campaigns: in the fall of 2021, when thousands of migrants crossed from Belarus into Poland, Merzlyakov gave migrants advice on leaving Belarus quickly, while Elameri advised them on how to behave at the Belarus-EU border. The Insider's reporting also links the network to a similar operation directing migrants toward Finland. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Merzlyakov and Elameri's operation shifted its focus to recruiting Arab nationals for Russia's Ministry of Defense and the private military companies operating alongside it.
The scheme operated through the recruitment ads, written exclusively in Arabic, are spread through YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram channels tied to Merzlyakov and Elameri's businesses, including Made in Russia24 and Sergey Habibi Travel, and through websites such as hala-russia.com and sergey-habibi.com that present themselves as travel and relocation services. According to The Insider, applicants submit their passport details and pay $1,000 for a "special invitation" to enter Russia, arranged through Made in Russia24, Merzlyakov, or Elameri directly. On arrival, recruits are met at the airport by a representative of the Russian military and a translator, then transported to Perm for a month of Russian-language and military training.
The Insider reports the pay structure as $9,400 for the first month (raised from $7,700 before July 2024), then $2,200 a month after that, under contracts of at least a year with what recruits are told is an "elite international battalion" of Russia's Ministry of Defense. A bonus system reportedly pays 50,000 to 1,000,000 rubles (roughly $540 to $10,700) for destroying or capturing enemy equipment. Recruits are told that if they are killed, their family receives a one-time payment of 15 million rubles (about $167,000) plus a $530 monthly pension, and that the body will be repatriated. The Insider says it has seen genuine Syrian and Egyptian visas issued through the scheme as "special invitations" tied to army contracts, and that one post on the Sergey Habibi Travel Telegram channel thanked recruited soldiers from Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria by name.
The United Kingdom designated Sergei Vyacheslavovich Merzlyakov under the Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025 (reference GIM0054). The UK government's statement of reasons says there are "reasonable grounds to suspect" Merzlyakov "is or has been involved in a relevant activity, namely the instrumentalisation of migration for the purposes of destabilisation," citing three grounds: facilitating travel from Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen to Finland via Russia; facilitating travel from Iraq and Syria to Poland via Belarus; and facilitating travel from Bangladesh, Iraq, India and Yemen to Ukraine via Russia, "as the individuals are deployed to fight for Russia in its war of aggression in Ukraine."