Jalandhar/Amritsar: All the answers to Parminder Kaur’s profound grief lay in an abstract file in the computers of Room 412 in a Russian army social centre. She was on a mission to find her husband Tejpal’s remains, who, she was told, had died fighting a foreign war in Russia. But there was no body to cry on, no death certificate to stare at, no last messages to remember. She had travelled all the way from Amritsar to Moscow to find proof of death, and then perhaps closure.
The news of Tejpal’s death had reached Parminder as early as April 2024, but without a death certificate to prove it, Parminder wasn’t willing to accept her husband’s demise. The Indian government didn’t have any answers either.
Parminder is not alone in her grief. At least 44 Indians have been recruited into the Russian war effort. About 16 people of Indian origin are believed to have gone missing after being recruited into the Russian army to fight the war in Ukraine, and 12 have been confirmed dead. Their families are now fighting a lonely battle to find their family members. As information remains inaccessible in India, they have been borrowing money to travel to Russia in search of their kin. They have formed a support group on WhatsApp to extend help to each other.
At the centre of the story is the unwillingness to mourn for a relative whose death hasn’t been confirmed, even as they’re overwrought by grief.
Tejpal was among the first batch of Indians confirmed to have died while fighting the war in Russia. But his body never arrived, and so even with all the information in front of her, Parminder refuses to fully accept the death of her husband. And so do tens of other families. They tell similar sordid tales of experiencing grief without closure.
Relatives have to follow the trail like investigative journalists. They end up in Moscow, not knowing what to do next, and then chase lead after lead. Their story takes them to recruitment offices and military commissariats in Moscow and St Petersburg. They scan through Russian documents via Google Lens and use translation apps to get by.
They now know the Russian babus (bureaucrats), they’re able to understand Russian numerals, and understand the system of Russian military courts.
The families feel terribly abandoned by the Indian government, insisting that sufficient help hasn’t been accorded to them.
“We have held several meetings at the MEA, and we’ve been given assurances, but they don’t follow up with us or do anything post that,” said Jagdeep Kumar, one of the people searching for their missing relatives in Moscow. “Even here, the embassies in St Petersburg or Moscow aren’t helpful. The gates of the embassy are shut for us.”
Room 412
‘Evacuation of body not possible’, Parminder Kaur fixated on this line when she read her husband Tejpal Singh’s death certificate.
It was the first proof of death. She spent a year saving up Rs 3 lakh to travel to Russia to find it.
Parminder remembers landing in Russia in September 2024 with nothing but an urge to get answers in mind. At first, she roamed around cluelessly. She went to army recruitment centres, and to the Indian embassy, but there were no answers; only a large, empty, cold country.
In Moscow, Parminder was finally redirected to Room 412. She would come to frequent this room. For the first time, she met someone who knew Tejpal.
Tejpal had gone to Russia in 2024 willingly to fight in the war against Ukraine. It had been his lifelong dream to be enlisted in the army, but it came to nought in India. Tejpal found a way to live his dream in Russia, even if it proved to be short-lived.
Parminder was determined to figure out the legal systems of a foreign nation, with zero understanding of the language of the country.
Room 412 is no different than a typical Indian sarkaari (government) office, Parminder said. The only difference: ‘people actually do their job’. She went to the room and sat in front of a woman, struggling to tell her about the work she wanted. As she spoke into Google Translate about her mission, Parminder broke down and was comforted by the women in the room.
The Russians softened at this and fast-tracked her work. When Tejpal’s file was pulled up, the women in the room told Parminder that they actually remembered him.
“Tejpal was a very chatty person, and the women seated there remembered him when I showed them his photo. They remembered his smile. They comforted me and offered water, and on the computer itself, they gave me information on Tejpal, his battalion number and enrollment number. Using those documents, I was able to find further information,” Parminder said.
In Moscow, she realised her issue would take months to resolve. She submitted an application at a social centre of the Russian military in Moscow, and hired a lawyer to whom she gave power of attorney.
“I had to confirm Tejpal’s death. I was still hoping that I would find him alive, or I wanted to go back home with his body. To give us all closure, to be able to move on,” Parminder said.
During her stay in Russia, Parminder retraced Tejpal’s steps. She went to the Kremlin to see it in person—Tejpal had spoken gloriously of the building. She was even able to trace and meet some of the people who had served in the army along with her late husband, including a Ghana national. Parminder met with multiple commandos, some stern, others polite. In the search for Tejpal, she went to recruitment centres in Moscow, St Petersburg and met with other family members suffering in the same way.
“He [the Ghana national] told me that he knows Tejpal didn’t make it. He was Tejpal’s friend during his last days and recounted to me the tales of his bravado. He showed me pictures of his family, and promised to meet us in Punjab one day,” Parminder recalled.
Her search ended in the manner she was praying against: She found Tejpal’s death certificate issued by the Ministry of Defence in Russia. She never told the family.
“His body was blown into bits. How am I supposed to tell my children that? How am I supposed to tell his parents that?” she said. “I have all the facts in front of me, and yet a part of me is unwilling to believe that Tejpal really is gone.”
She has not told the family about the certificate.
“They still believe Tejpal will walk through that door one day because they haven’t seen his body. Even I, after reading all of this, still believe he’s alive somewhere,” Parminder said.
Parminder is now parenting her two children, a five-year-old and a nine-year-old. Earlier, the nine-year-old son would constantly ask her when papa would be back from Russia. He has stopped asking those questions now.
Parminder, who has been to Russia thrice now for two to three weeks each time, plans to travel to Ukraine’s Robotyne in 2026 summers to visit the military outpost where Tejpal was last posted.
“I want to ask them how could they do this, keep his death shrouded in mystery for so long. I want them to look me in my eyes and give me answers,” she said.
With the death certificate in place, Parminder and her family are now eligible for a pension, as well as permanent residence in Russia.
And even as families are scrambling for answers, the truth offers no relief to Parminder.
“Tejpal’s parents think one day he will walk in through the front door. I cannot kill that hope. Maybe, Tejpal might just actually come back.”
Also read: Indian workers are heading to Russia, Greece, Japan. Gulf losing its shine
Searching for a brother
Jagdeep Kumar is now a well-known face in the military social centres of Moscow. He regularly visits the centres, asking about the whereabouts of missing Indians. Holding the power of attorney of 12 families, Jagdeep is their last remaining hope to know about the whereabouts of their relatives.
The last two years have been a nightmare for Jagdeep. He has not been able to sleep properly or even work regularly. One question haunts him: Where is his brother Mandeep?
This personal grief allows him to empathise with others and help those in a similar stage of mourning.
In 2023, Mandeep had left home a happy man. He was going to Italy in search of work. Jagdeep had gotten married just the year before, and now his younger brother was off to change the fortunes of their family. Mandeep was promised a visa to Italy when he left India in December 2023. The family paid Rs 31.40 lakh to an agent for Mandeep’s travel to Italy. His mom sent him off to his new life with chawal ki kheer. However, Mandeep landed in Moscow and was recruited into the Russian Army.
Jagdeep and his parents spoke to Mandeep for the last time on 3 March 2024. He was sent to the frontlines in Donetsk after he was given training to become a sniper. Some of the people trafficked with Mandeep were later rescued and brought back to India. None of them has an answer to Jagdeep’s questions—where was Mandeep, what was he doing last?
In 2024, Jagdeep got in touch with families whose kin had gone missing in Russia and formed a WhatsApp group, as well as a collective to speak to the Indian embassy to find Indian citizens stuck abroad. Over the last two years, Jagdeep has been able to secure several meetings at the MEA. But the families never got the information they required from the Indian embassy.
Jagdeep spoke to Parminder, who by then had already filed litigation in Russian courts, and advised the families to travel to Moscow to get answers. They were on their own, she said.
Jagdeep instantly got to work. He started approaching local politicians—MPs and MLAs to receive help in the search for Mandeep. He was able to mobilise some financial help and got on a plane to Moscow in October 2024, along with three others whose relatives were missing.
The first stop was military social centres.
Military social centres operate out of the Military Commissariat in Russia, run by the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation, and founded by a presidential decree in 2023. They provide assistance to families of the wounded or deceased to claim compensation benefits from the government. They also provide necessary military documents to families, which are required for the civil courts to legally declare a missing soldier dead. This court order is the key to unlocking government payouts.
Russia has not updated its death toll in the war against Ukraine since March 2025, and casualties are currently shrouded in secrecy, with even Russian citizens running for answers.
Jagdeep was ready for his protracted struggle in the bureaucracy of Russia, visiting Moscow, St Petersburg, and finding hostels and hotels in Moscow to somehow spend his days. He is armed with a letter from the Ministry of External Affairs to look for clues and the power of attorney for 13 families.
There are parents from Haryana he comforts. He is a brother to grieving wives and a light of hope to optimistic children.
He has been subjected to racism, abuse, and harassment by the Russian police.
“The Russian people are not welcoming at all; they hate Indians. I have even been thrown out of hotels and restaurants because they didn’t want a brown person inside,” Jagdeep told ThePrint over the phone.
In the last two years, Jagdeep has visited Russia three times in search of his brother.
He is now familiar with the metro in Moscow, survives on ready-to-eat noodles and has been to almost every hostel and dormitory in the city.
Back home in Punjab’s Guraya, Jagdeep’s father, Avtar, is unable to talk about his younger son without his voice breaking. He runs a mobile sim shop in the local market and lives in a small house by the farm in Ravidas Nagar of Guraya.
“I just know he is alive, maybe he has been taken prisoner of war in Ukraine,” the father said. He goes through Jagdeep’s marriage album, in which Mandeep can be seen dancing and smiling.
“He was trafficked there into the army, God knows what happened to him. I fear the worst,” he said.
Avtar’s first and only foreign trip has been to Russia, where he had no way to communicate with people except via translator apps. He went with Jagdeep. He met with other parents and shared stories of their sons with each other. They cried in each other’s company and held each other’s hands in support. A special bond and camaraderie have taken root among the families as they struggle together.
Jagdeep’s biggest hope is that his brother, Mandeep, is a prisoner of war in Ukraine. However, as ThePrint has reported earlier, there’s only one Prisoner of War of Indian origin in Ukrainian custody.
Now, Jagdeep is making concessions and looking in places he didn’t want initially: Mortuaries.
“The Russians are holding some Indian bodies in mortuaries in Rostov, so that is where I am going, hoping that I don’t find my answer there,” he told ThePrint.
Also read: ‘Bring my brother back alive, not in a body bag’—Indian men still trapped in Russia’s war
Waiting for proof
Rabab Khan saw his childhood friend Zahur Ahmed getting shot in the head. He had no time to grieve. Khan, injured in battle in Donetsk, had to find an escape. He found his way to a hospital, then the Indian Embassy and back home in UP’s Kasganj.
Like Jagdeep is the beacon of hope for families in Haryana and Punjab, Khan plays that role for families from UP, especially Azamgarh.
His return from the Ukrainian battlefield offers hope to grieving families. Perhaps their son will also find a way back, or he will give them some clues to get them back.
The first place that Khan went to after coming home was Kashmir—Zahur’s house. He had to break the news to his ageing parents, who, even two years later, refuse to believe him. So Khan frequents Moscow to find something that would bring them closure.
“They don’t believe me, even if I know the truth. There’s no dead body; it must’ve been decomposed by now, so accepting their son’s death in a far-off land is really difficult for them,” Khan said to ThePrint from Moscow. “I hope to get a hold of at least some of his belongings to give closure to the family.”
For the last three years, the Russian war and the trauma in the aftermath have defined Khan’s reality. He is unable to pull himself out of it. He doesn’t get a breather; every other day, someone calls, asking for help. They have just one question: Where is our son and when will he be brought back?
Most of the men hail from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana. Other than Tejpal, most cases seem to be of trafficking via agents.
Last year, Prime Minister Modi, on his visit to Russia, had directly raised the issue of Indian recruitment into the Russian war, and Moscow had assured India that further recruitments would not take place.
And yet, the number of Indians serving—that the MEA is aware of—in the Russian army has ballooned from 27 as reported in September to 44 in October.
Only a few families have been able to get the remains of their kin back, like Ajay from Azamgarh.
“When my father’s death was confirmed last year, I made a bunch of calls to the Russian consulate, the Indian embassy in Moscow, and to local leaders. I wanted his body back at any cost. I wanted to give him a dignified farewell,” he told ThePrint over the phone
Even though Ajay, in his 30s, was able to secure his 50-year-old father, Kanhaiya’s body, he was unable to trace the whereabouts of his uncle, 39-year-old Vinod Yadav, who continues to be on the list of missing persons.
“I have visited Russia twice to look for his dead body. It is important for me to get his body back at home,” Yadav said.
He harbours no hope of his uncle’s chance at survival. “99.99 per cent he is gone. But it is very difficult for us sitting in India to accept that someone has died in an area whose name they can’t even pronounce,” Yadav said.
“As long as the body is not found, chacha’s (uncle’s) children will keep waiting for their father.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)