MOSCOW, March 16 (Reuters) – Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said on Monday that Moscow and Nairobi had agreed that Kenyan nationals would no longer fight for Russia in Ukraine.
Mudavadi made the statement after holding talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
“His excellency has conversed with us on the issue of the welfare of Kenyans who are in Russia and more specifically those who are involved in the special operation,” Mudavadi said.
“And I want to make it clear that we have now agreed that Kenyans shall not be enlisted through the (Russian) Ministry of Defence – they will no longer be eligible to be enlisted,” he said. “There will no further enlisting.”
He added that consular services would be organised for those Kenyans requiring assistance through proper diplomatic channels.
“We do not want for any reason our partnership with Russia to be defined from the lenses of the special operation (in Ukraine) agenda only,” he said. “The relationship between Kenya and Russia is much more broader than that.”
Lavrov said that Kenyan citizens had voluntarily signed contracts to fight alongside the Russian army.
A Kenyan intelligence report presented to lawmakers in February said that more than 1,000 Kenyans had been recruited to fight on Russia’s side in the war in Ukraine, five times more than authorities had previously estimated.
Kenyan politicians have described what they say is a network of rogue state officials who have colluded with human trafficking syndicates to recruit Kenyans to fight for Russia in Ukraine, a practice Nairobi said it wanted to stop.
(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Andrew Osborn/Guy Faulconbridge)
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