Uzbekistan tops the list of 33 countries by the number of citizens captured in Ukraine during the military conflict after the Russia’s invasion. All of them ended up there as mercenaries under contract with the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian project "I Want to Live", created to help Russian soldiers voluntarily surrender.
The project, supervised by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, added that Russia continued to increase its efforts to recruit citizens of Uzbekistan to join the ranks of the Russian army.
"From our sources in the Russian Armed Forces, we are receiving data on everyone who signed a contract with the Russian army. In 2025, Russia recruited 902 citizens of Uzbekistan to the war," the statement added.
In April, the "I Want to Live" project reported 1,110 citizens of Uzbekistan who signed contracts with the Russian Armed Forces to participate in the war, but the period in question was not specified. According to the project, at least 109 people from this list have died. According to calculations by the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, published in July, at least 66 Uzbek citizens have died, more than half of whom were those who went to the front from colonies in Russia.
The Ukrainian authorities claim that Uzbeks who landed in Russia as labor migrants are lured to the war zone under the pretext of highly paid work - for example, at construction sites or in the rear units of the army. One of the main incentives is the promise of Russian citizenship. This has been repeatedly confirmed in court testimony in Uzbekistan in cases of mercenarism.
Those who are serving sentences in Russian prisons are forced to join the army through intimidation and psychological pressure, the I Want to Live project noted. Recruitment, according to the project, is often accompanied by blackmail, especially in relation to migrants who recently received Russian citizenship.
It is an offense to join hostilities actions on the territory and on the side of third countries. Under Article 154 of the Criminal Code, mercenarism, i.e. participation in an armed conflict or military actions on the territory of a foreign state by a person who is not a citizen or serviceman of a country in conflict, or who does not permanently reside in the territory controlled by a party to the conflict, in order to receive material compensation, is punishable by imprisonment for 5 to 10 years.
Under Article 154-1 of the Criminal Code, the joining by a citizen of Uzbekistan the military service, service in the security agencies, police, military justice or other similar bodies of foreign states is punishable by a fine of up to 300 basic calculation units (112.5 million soums) or correctional labor for up to 3 years, and in the case of recruitment - up to 5 years of imprisonment.
