Published: 12:00 AM, 27 October 2026
Deadly Job Traps for Bangladeshis Amid Russia-Ukraine War
For a better life, each of them paid approximately $8000. Instead, they were given 21 days of training, a confiscated passport, and a one-way ticket to a drone strike. We are talking about Bangladeshi citizens who expected a good life in the international job market. At least 30 Bangladeshi citizens were trafficked to Russia in exchange for high-paying jobs from early 2026 till today, according to the Special Response Battalion (SRB) of Bangladesh. When they arrived, their passports, cell phones, and documents were confiscated, they were locked up in a hotel, and then, without any jobs, sent to the Russian military. 17 of them died on their first day on deployment. Twenty have died, it is now confirmed. Two are hospitalized in Moscow. Six, according to a survivor, are still somewhere on the battlefield.
This is no war story. It is a trafficking story that is played out by a state at the receiving end. And the state that received them was Russia.
At least the Bangladeshi police have fulfilled their part. Two men, Mizanur Rahman, owner of Jabale Noor, and Abu Taher, have been arrested, and two other agencies, SRB International and TS Group, have been mentioned in the network. It's a legal and appropriate initial move. At the same time, catching the recruiters does not help to understand how 30 men with forged passports, without Russian language skills, without military experience, and without legal status became members of the Russian armed forces and were placed in front of the Ukrainian drones. Russia wasn't "chosen" for this. Russia didn't fall in love with this. A military that needs identification, medical screening, and documentation cannot be a conduit for the trafficking of foreign civilians. As those passports were confiscated and as the men were turned over to the army, there was no consent. The result was forced service in a foreign war, a practice described by Amnesty International as Russia's “deceptive, coercive and exploitative” recruitment of foreigners and now involving 47 countries, as President Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly last month.
The scale is not marginal. According to estimates, there are 28,000 foreigners from 136 countries in Russia's army. This is not a coincidence, it's a recruitment model. And Bangladesh, like Nepal and India, with reported cases, has joined its supply chain.
The most disturbing fact is strategic. SRB commander Mohammad Asaduzzaman said Bangladeshis were "used as bait to locate enemy positions," meaning the Russians "decided their next course of action after the Bangladeshis targeted with drone attacks were captured. Read that again. The human population was used as disposable sensors. It was their deaths that provided the data. Using civilians to shield or screen military objectives is prohibited under Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (Article 51(7)), and the feigning of protected status is perfidy under Article 37. The Palermo Protocol on trafficking establishes that deception, coercion, and exploitation are the three elements required for trafficking, no matter by whom, or for what purposes. Russia is a party to the Geneva Conventions. It cannot say that it doesn't know what a stolen passport is. This is the place to increase accountability. The syndicate was a fraud, and Russia was the one that exploited it. Dhaka needs to be very clear, and not just with Mizanur Rahman.
The ICC (International Criminal Court) route is narrow. Russia is not a party to the ICC, and any Security Council referral to the ICC would be vetoed; therefore, diplomatic and economic pressure, rather than courtroom hopes, must be the driving force.
Somewhere in this country, a 22-year-old man from Kalihati upazila in Tangail has reportedly been killed while fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war, according to his family., a mother is still expecting a phone call about a salary. Instead, she may receive a coffin or nothing at all. Bangladesh is not a party to this war. Our constitution does not send our sons to die in Kursk or Donetsk. They went seeking wages, not martyrdom. The traffickers in Dhaka sold them a lie; Russia turned that lie into a weapon and used their bodies to test where the drones were coming from.
At the very least, the government should say no to this becoming a personal tragedy. Russia must be officially and repeatedly called out on its role in providing trafficked Bangladeshis to its military and using them as bait. We do urge there is a need to call out Russia officially and repeatedly on its use of trafficked Bangladeshis as bait in its military. And Dhaka needs to take human trafficking as a serious matter of national security, not just a law-and-order problem, before the next 30 traffickers board a plane.
Imran Hossain teaches
Business Administration in Bangladesh Army International University of Science and
Technology (BAIUST), Cumilla.
