Uzbek mass media have been reporting on Uzbek nationals who fought in the Russia-Ukraine war as mercenaries, based on court documents from trials. The reports reveal certain patterns. Labor migrants, often already serving prison terms or facing new charges in Russia, are promised money or threatened with jail time and manipulated into signing military contracts. They go through a rushed training, sometimes only a few days, before being sent to the frontlines. Many are injured quickly, flee to Moscow to seek help from the Uzbek embassy, and then turn themselves in once back home.
While these patterns have been visible since the early months of the war, some observers have pointed out that the punishments in Uzbekistan for fighting in a foreign military force are becoming increasingly lenient.
One example is that of 25-year-old Mansur*, who upon returning home and surrendering to the authorities, received a fairly light sentence: four years of restricted freedom instead of incarceration.
Mansur had been serving a ten-year prison term in Russia after his 2022 arrest there. Speaking in court in Uzbekistan, he said that while in prison he was repeatedly offered 1.8 million rubles ($20,000) and Russian citizenship in exchange for joining the army. In October 2024, he signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense. A few months later, in January 2025, he was injured by grenade fragments on a battlefield in Ukraine. He was moved to a hospital in Donetsk to recover,
While moving to another hospital, Mansur managed to flee to Moscow. There, the Uzbek embassy arranged his repatriation to Uzbekistan.
Uzbek law prohibits citizens from taking part in armed conflicts on behalf of foreign states. Article 154 of the Criminal Code sets punishment at five to ten years in prison for citizens who fight as mercenaries in foreign wars, up to 12 years for those who recruit or finance them, and three to five years for those who join foreign military, police, or security services.
Russia began recruiting labor migrants almost immediately after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Tashkent was quick to remind its citizens that joining the war is illegal. The government’s concern is not unfounded, given the scale of labor migration to Russia. While the exact figures are difficult to track due to the seasonal nature of migration, Moscow itself reported that 1.5 million Uzbek citizens arrived in Russia in 2024 alone, making up roughly 23 percent of all foreign workers that year.
Mitigating Circumstances
Despite Tashkent’s repeated warnings, many migrants have still taken up arms for Russia, with some even claiming innocence on the grounds of ignorance. Those who managed to avoid prison after returning to Uzbekistan often pointed to similar circumstances: not knowing that joining a foreign army was a crime, being pressured or tricked into signing military contracts, having expiring work permits in Russia, or being the sole breadwinner. Courts also cited family conditions such as underaged children, spouses with disabilities, or elderly parents in need of care as mitigating factors that led to reduced sentences.
One such recent case is that of 24-year-old Karim*. He traveled to Russia in October 2024 and responded to a job advertisement in a Telegram channel that offered 150,000 rubles ($1,850) a month for timber work. On average, migrant workers in Russia make about $600 per month. After undergoing a medical examination and signing what he thought was an employment contract, he discovered he had in fact enlisted in the Russian army. When he refused to participate in military activities (as he claimed), he was threatened with a five-year prison sentence.
Karim was deployed to the frontline in the Kursk region. He managed to leave the battlefield only after falling ill and being transferred to a recovery camp. From there, he escaped to Moscow, where the Uzbek embassy arranged his repatriation.
Back in Uzbekistan, Karim argued that he had not understood the criminal nature of his actions. The court sentenced him to four years of restricted freedom – the same lenient punishment handed down to others in similar cases.
The exact number of Uzbeks serving in the Russian army remains unknown. Earlier, Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, stated in June 2024 that over 10,000 labor migrants had been sent to fight in Ukraine after being detained in migration raids. Given that Uzbeks make up the largest share of all migrant workers in Russia, it is likely that a significant portion of those sent to the frontlines were Uzbek citizens. In May, Ukraine’s I Want to Live project published a database listing 1,110 Uzbek citizens who had allegedly served, complete with names and personal details. According to the project, the youngest among them was 21 years old, while the oldest was 62.
The list does not include prisoners of war, but Ukrainian officials have reported that Uzbek citizens also make up a significant portion of those taken prisoner.
The I Want to Live project noted that Uzbeks are being recruited the same way as their neighbors from Tajikistan. The Diplomat earlier reported that many Central Asians are recruited from Russian prisons with a classic carrot and stick tactic: offers of freedom, money, and citizenship versus remaining imprisoned.
59 year old Rasul’s* story reflects another common pathway into Russia’s war. He traveled to Russia in 2020 in search of work but was soon imprisoned on charges of murdering his neighbor and sentenced to nine years. In 2022, while still behind bars, he was recruited by the Wagner Group, a private Russian paramilitary company, with promises of good money, a pardon, and Russian citizenship.
Rasul served for six months on the frontline and, according to his own testimony, was pardoned for his “exemplary participation.” After completing his service, he stayed in Russia to work before returning to Uzbekistan in 2025. Despite earlier promises, he does not appear to have obtained Russian citizenship.
Upon his return, Rasul voluntarily surrendered to the Uzbek authorities. A court sentenced him to three and a half years of restricted freedom.
Uzbek media have noted that the punishments for recruitment into a foreign army are now more lenient than previously.
For example, Gazeta.uz compared the case of an Uzbek citizen who, in 2023, was sentenced to five years in prison for fighting on the side of the Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014-2015, with that of another man in his 20s who had briefly served in the Russian army before being wounded amid the current phase of the conflict. The latter initially received a six-year prison term, but just 19 days later an appeals court reduced his punishment to a suspended sentence with probation.
Reviewing more than a dozen court cases from 2024-2025 involving recruitment into the Russian army, Kun.uz concluded that only one recruit was sentenced to five years of imprisonment. The rest received restricted freedom. Observers note that restricted freedom, similar to probation, usually means a defendant cannot leave home at night, must notify the police if changing residence, and is not allowed to leave their region of residence. In practice, this punishment does not significantly alter a person’s daily life.
Tolib*, a 39-year-old, signed a contract with the Russian army in July 2023 without any reported pressure or threats. He was motivated by the promise of a monthly payment of 450,000 rubles (about $5,600), with additional compensation in case of injury. During his service, which lasted until November 2023, he admitted to killing more than 10 Ukrainian soldiers.
It is not clear why Tolib abruptly ended his service, but he returned to Uzbekistan, and surrendered to the authorities in early 2024. One possible explanation is that although he initially received 150,000 rubles, payments soon stopped altogether. In court, his sentence was softened by several mitigating factors. Judges noted that he was the sole breadwinner in his family, had no prior convictions, and had three children. As a result, he was sentenced to only four years of restricted freedom.
Some bloggers, both from Uzbekistan and Ukraine, have criticized such lenient sentences.
Money, Money, Money
While many, if not a majority, of the Uzbeks who joined the Russian army claim that they were forced or manipulated, money also weighs as a heavy factor. On average, labor migrants in Russia often work blue collar jobs, in eating establishments, retail, on construction sites, even cleaning streets. While the salary they receive (on average $600 per month) is higher than what they could have earned at home, living expenses in Russia are also high. The seasonal nature of many jobs ensures that migrant work is often unstable and many also get scammed either by employers or by fellow migrants. The Russian army, on the other hand, has been offering comparatively much more money and occasionally even paying up front.
One case is that of 32-year-old Anvar*, who moved to Russia in 2018 and obtained Russian citizenship without giving up his Uzbek passport. In 2025, he was imprisoned and, in order to avoid serving his sentence, agreed to join the Russian army.
Anvar was deployed to Luhansk, where in July he was injured in a rocket attack and declared unfit for further service. Despite his shortened deployment, he received a payout of 3 million rubles (about $37,500). He then returned to Uzbekistan where he was arrested and sentenced to five years in a general-regime penal colony.
51-year-old Alisher Khalikov also signed a one-year enlistment contract in order to avoid serving a prison sentence in Russia after a fight with another Uzbek. Khalikov received an advance payment of half a million rubles (about $6,200). After two months of training, he was deployed to a battlefield in Luhansk, where he was injured and then treated in Moscow for a month. During his recovery, he received an additional 300,000 rubles ($3,700).
During his court hearing in Uzbekistan, Khalikov claimed that he was declared unfit for military service and therefore could not continue, but at the same time he was unable to retrieve his passport because he had declined Russian citizenship. Eventually, he returned to Uzbekistan using his old green passport (for domestic use, currently being replaced with ID cards), which his wife brought to him in Russia. Upon return, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
Interestingly, the money offered by the Russian army differs from case to case. A 20-year-old Uzbek was promised 195,000 rubles ($2,400) per month for his service, while a 48-year-old was offered 240,000 rubles ($3,000). In some cases the sums were much larger. One 21-year-old was promised a payment of 2 million rubles, roughly $24,000.
For many, a few thousand dollars may not seem worth the risk of going to the frontline. However, Uzbekistan is a lower-middle-income country where the average monthly salary is around $400. That figure is skewed upward by white-collar employment in cities; incomes in rural areas are far lower. The labor migrants who travel to Russia are often men without higher education, many from rural areas where even low-paying jobs are scarce. For them, the prospect of quick cash and the promise of legal status in Russia can appear far more attractive than it might to others.
Money, injury, imprisonment, or restricted freedom are not the only outcomes for Uzbeks who join the Russian army. Some return home in coffins.
In 2023, 34 Uzbeks were reported to have died in the war. Ukraine’s I Want to Live project reported that out of 1,110 Uzbeks identified as serving in the Russian army, at least 10 percent (109) were confirmed killed. Last year, Tashkent repatriated the bodies of 483 labor migrants who had been working abroad legally. Of these, 474, or about 98 percent, were brought back from Russia. The Uzbek authorities did not disclose the circumstances of their deaths, but given the context of the ongoing war and widespread recruitment of migrants, questions remain about how many may have died on the battlefields of Ukraine.
Court testimonies of Uzbek citizens recruited into the Russian army run the gamut of experiences. Some were threatened into contracts, some joined to escape prison, and some joined up for the money. Many never came back. Those who have returned to Uzbekistan have increasingly faced restricted freedom instead of real prison sentences, even when they admitted to fighting and killing on the frontlines, displaying a greater degree of sympathy for mitigating circumstances on the part of the courts than earlier in the conflict.
At the same time, coffins keep arriving from Russia, and the number of dead or wounded is hard to know.
For now, Tashkent seems more focused on quietly handling these cases than setting a strict example. Uzbekistan’s authorities are likely aware of the scale and complexity of the problem. With so many Uzbek citizens working in Russia, and such a range of pressure and luring tactics available to Russian authorities, Tashkent can do little to impede recruitment. At the same time, given limited employment opportunities at home and the social consequences of punishing breadwinners, Tashkent also can’t come down too hard on those who find their way home alive. There is also the wider regional political context. In similar cases in neighboring countries, such as Kyrgyzstan, returnees are given lenient sentences, too. This may reflect an acute sensitivity to the link between this issue and relations with Moscow.
As more Uzbeks return or die in the war, Tashkent’s balancing act between enforcing the law and acknowledging social realities is likely to grow even more difficult.
*Uzbek media typically only report on criminal cases using initials for the accused. The Diplomat has provided pseudonyms for readability purposes based on the initials.