Gurugram: Russia stopped recruiting Indians into its armed forces from March, and some of those who remain in military service have since acquired Russian citizenship, Denis Alipov, Russia’s Ambassador to India, said Tuesday.
Alipov’s statement at ThePrint’s ‘Off The Cuff’ event, held at the Quorum Club in Gurugram, comes against the backdrop of a Haryana youngster, whose family says he died fighting for Moscow in the Ukraine war and whose remains were brought back to India Wednesday.
Earlier this month, a man who said he was an Indian citizen surrendered to Ukrainian forces, prompting New Delhi to reiterate its stand on halting recruitment of Indians for the war.
“This is a very big problem that we have now. There were many instances of, you know, unscrupulous recruiting agencies offering high earnings to Indians, in service… [to] the Russian Army. We promised that we will stop that. And since March this year, we have stopped doing that,” Alipov said in an interaction with ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta and Editor (Defence and Diplomacy) Snehesh Alex Philip.
The Russian envoy added: “We have from the very start stressed that to the Indian government, that the Russian Army, does not recruit Indians… if a foreigner comes to a recruiting centre and signs the contract voluntarily… Nobody makes him sign that contract.”
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, at least a hundred Indians signed up to serve in the Russian military at the end of 2023 and early 2024. The issue was also brought up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Moscow in July last year.
Of the Indians who joined the Russian military, around 96 have returned while a number of them died in the war. At Tuesday’s event, Alipov confirmed that Russia has introduced mechanisms to hand over compensation to the families of Indians who died in the war and said the government is in the process of transferring the money.
“What we have, what problem we have now, is that some of the Indians who still are in the Russian Army serving, not only in Ukraine, in other places, have acquired Russian citizenship. So they are Russian citizens of Indian origin,” the envoy said.
He went on, “And some of these people approach the Indian government, so that the Indian government helps them to return, although they are Russian citizens. We are now trying to find legal ways to deal with this because it complicates the situation. They cannot be just dismissed at the request of the Indian government from the military service, since there are very different provisions for Russian citizens.”
New Delhi has requested consular access for Majoti Sahil Mohamed Hussein, the soldier who claimed he was an Indian citizen while surrendering to Ukrainian forces. The situation in his case is further complicated because he says he signed up to join Russian forces to reduce his prison sentence there. Since he is considered a prisoner of war affiliated with the Russian forces, his return to India requires Moscow to request an exchange of PoW with Kyiv.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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