Deception, Exploitation, and the Silence of a Nation
By Joseph Kamanga
As the Russia-Ukraine war hits its fourth anniversary on the 24th of February 2026, the conflict is no longer a distant headline for Zambia; it has become a “triple crisis” that is claiming the lives and dignity of its youth. While official government circles focus on GDP losses, an investigation into the human cost reveals a darker reality of deceptive recruitment and modern-day slavery. What began as a European power struggle has moved from the wallet to the very lives of our people, creating a predatory system that harvests African desperation.
In a recent discussion on the impact of the conflict, Pastor Albert Nyirenda described a heartbreaking reality for families across the continent. He noted that Africans are being lured into the conflict under “false pretenses,” promised jobs in construction or as drivers, only to find themselves on the front lines. “People are recruited on deception… you find yourself in the battlefront line. You are more like being used as shoes,” Pastor Nyirenda stated, using the haunting term “war shoes” to describe how African men are being used as expendable assets. “Africa has been used as a lab, and now we’ve been used as war shoes. I think Africa is being insulted.”
The Pastor’s account is backed by the tragic case of Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda, a Zambian student who died in Ukraine in 2022 after being recruited from a Russian prison. His family continues to maintain that his recruitment was coerced, setting a grim precedent that has only accelerated in 2025 and 2026.
Kingsley Chipulu, President of Youth Care Impact, highlights that the motivation for many young people to take these risks is rooted in the war’s economic fallout, specifically the devastating impact of the 3F’s: Food, Fuel, and Fertilizer. He explains that the disruption of global grain, fuel, and fertilizer supplies has caused a “sharp increase in food and energy prices” that has devastated Zambian households. “Since many African countries rely heavily on imports from Russia and Ukraine… the price spikes worsened inflation, hunger, and financial strain,” Chipulu noted. He further observed that this 3F crisis has “slowed economic recovery after COVID-19 and deepened debt pressures across the continent,” making the youth vulnerable to traffickers promising a way out.
The economic impact has been felt most acutely at the gas pump and the dinner table. As a landlocked nation, Zambia has seen permanent hikes in fuel costs, which have driven up the price of every essential good. The weaponization of wheat supplies from the Black Sea has made basic bread a luxury for many, while the skyrocketing cost of imported fertilizer has crippled local small-scale farmers. This general increase in the cost of living has dismantled the financial security of the average Zambian, creating the very desperation that recruiters exploit.
For Zambia, fuel is not just a commodity; it is the heartbeat of all commerce. Because the nation must transport almost all its goods by road, the 25% to 30% increase in global crude prices triggered by the war has created a “domino effect” of inflation. By February 2026, the cost of diesel and petrol at the pump has forced transport operators to hike fares, meaning a youth looking for work in Lusaka spends a third of their daily potential income just on the commute. This “transport poverty” has socially isolated many young people, making remote, high-paying “foreign offers” look like their only chance at survival.
Before the invasion, Russia and Ukraine were the “breadbasket of the world,” supplying over 30% of global wheat exports. For Africa, this resulted in a 60% hike in wheat prices almost overnight. In Zambia, bread is a daily staple for millions. The disruption of these shipments has led to “imported inflation,” where the price of a loaf of bread or a bag of flour is determined by events thousands of miles away. This food insecurity isn’t just about hunger; it’s about a loss of dignity as families are forced to cut back on meals, leading to a sense of hopelessness that makes the false promises of recruiters more believable.
Perhaps the most long-term damage has been done to the soil. Russia is a major global exporter of nitrogenous and phosphate fertilizers. When the war began, prices for these inputs spiked by over 160%. For the small-scale Zambian farmer, this meant that the cost of planting a single hectare of maize or wheat became unaffordable. While Zambia is making strides toward fertilizer self-sufficiency at plants like Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ), the gap left by the war in 2024 and 2025 has led to lower crop yields and higher prices for mealie-meal. This agricultural depression has pushed rural youth into the cities, where they find no jobs and fall prey to the “war shoes” pipeline.
Beyond the numbers, the social impact on Zambia and Africa is catastrophic. We are witnessing a “brain drain” and a “body drain.” When a young man like Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda is killed, it is not just one life lost; it is the loss of a potential engineer, a teacher, or a father. The social fabric of African communities is built on the support of the youth. As they are lured away, the burden of care falls back on the elderly, who are already struggling with the 3F crisis. This creates a cycle of poverty and grief that could take generations to heal.
Investigations have confirmed that the “war shoes” pipeline is now more active than ever. The recruitment process has moved into the digital space, with predatory ads appearing on social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Telegram. Recruiters often use Instagram influencers to market “hospitality scholarships” that are actually traps. These influencers are often paid to show “glamorous” lives in Russia, hiding the reality of the front lines or the drone factories.
Furthermore, clandestine travel agencies in Lusaka and Nairobi, often operating without valid licenses, coordinate the movement of these youth by securing visitor visas to bypass official labor protections. These agencies often seize the passports of the youth upon arrival in Russia, placing them in a state of debt bondage where they are told they must “work off” their travel expenses.
As of February 2026, intelligence reports identify over 1,400 Africans from 36 countries currently on the front lines.
This month, the Kenyan Parliament revealed that over 1,000 Kenyans have been lured to Russia, often traveling on tourist visas through Istanbul or Abu Dhabi to avoid detection.
For women, the exploitation takes the form of the “Alabuga Start” program. Promising hospitality scholarships, it instead funnels young women into factories to assemble attack drones under “slave-like” conditions.
Despite these mounting reports, the Zambian government has remained notably quiet on the trafficking of its citizens. While officials have complained that the war and the 3F’s are “constraining the resource envelope” and harming the economy, there has been no formal public statement regarding the recruitment of Zambians into the Russian military or drone factories in 2025 or 2026. This silence is often interpreted as a desire to remain “neutrally aligned” in a global conflict, but it comes at the cost of African lives.
As Kingsley Chipulu warns, the redirection of international aid toward Ukraine has left African development programs underfunded, forcing more youth into the hands of recruiters. The world’s eyes are on the trenches of Europe, but the victims are being harvested from the streets of Africa. The result, as Pastor Nyirenda describes, is an “insult” to the continent: a generation being used as “shoes” in a war that has already stolen their food and their future.