The Ukrainian state project I Want to Live has data on 3,407 Tajik citizens who were sent to the combat zone in Ukraine under a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense. This statistic was provided by the project in response to a request from the Telegram channel Ukraine – Central Asia.
The information published on April 20 notes that the personal data of 12,666 natives of Central Asia, who signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense to participate in the war in Ukraine, have been established.
Uzbekistan holds the leading position in the number of identified contract soldiers, with the personal data of 4,853 citizens of the republic fighting on the side of Russia established. Tajikistan (3,407 people) and Kazakhstan (2,389 people) also entered the top three. The list is completed by Kyrgyzstan with 1,439 contractors and Turkmenistan, from where 578 citizens were recorded as having been sent to serve in the Russian Armed Forces.
According to data from the I Want to Live project, published in the summer of 2025, the nominal lists of citizens from Central Asian countries recruited for Russia’s war against Ukraine included 5,740 names. Thus, since that time, this figure has more than doubled.
I Want to Live is a Ukrainian state project of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. It was created with the support of the Ministry of Defense and the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine to help military personnel from Russia and Belarus and those mobilized participating in Russia’s war with Ukraine to safely surrender.
There Are Mercenaries, But No Responsibility
It should be noted that Tajik citizens end up in the war in Ukraine in various ways: some are forced under the threat of deportation from Russia, while others go voluntarily, signing a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense in exchange for promises of citizenship, high payments, and other benefits.
It should be noted that in Tajikistan, the participation of the republic’s citizens in hostilities abroad entails criminal liability under Article 401 (“Mercenaries”) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan, which provides for punishment of up to 20 years in prison.
However, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Tajikistan, no citizen of the country has been held criminally liable for participating in military actions in Ukraine. Tajikistan’s Prosecutor-General Habibullo Vohidzoda explained this by stating that many Tajik citizens are also Russian citizens, and the Tajik side cannot initiate criminal cases against citizens who, while in Russia, have obligations to that country.
Ukraine Recruits Too
Meanwhile, there is virtually no information on how many citizens from Central Asian countries are fighting on the side of Ukraine. According to the English-language MilitaryLand portal, during the existence of the Ukrainian Defense Legion, created on February 27, 2022, and disbanded on December 31, 2025, thousands of foreign volunteer fighters from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America joined its ranks.
Information on the number of Central Asian citizens recruited into the Ukrainian army is absent in open sources. In August 2025, Deutsche Welle published an article “Who and How Recruits Kazakh Citizens for the War in Ukraine?”, becoming one of the first global media to acknowledge that not only Russia but also Ukraine is attracting people from Kazakhstan to participate in hostilities. However, the article does not provide figures, only recruitment methods.
The publication noted that, for example, throughout 2025, advertisements offering employment in an unnamed state appeared on Tajik websites and job search chats in the Tajik language. Tajikistanis who showed interest later wrote in their posts that they were being attempted to be recruited for participation in the war on the side of Ukraine.
