In August 2023, a notorious Bosnian Serb mercenary appeared on a Russian propaganda program to recruit for a volunteer military unit in the all-out war against Ukraine the Kremlin had launched 18 months earlier.

“I want to invite both Russians and Serbs," Davor Savicic, who is linked to the now-defunct Wagner mercenary group and has fought in Syria and Ukraine, said in the interview. “The unit is operating and will continue to operate.”

Savicic had previously been cagey with journalists about his activities in Russia, claiming to be a simple construction worker living outside Moscow. And in the interview, with the pro-Kremlin program Solovyov Live, he claimed his volunteer unit was “signing a contract with the [Russian] Defense Ministry.”

But a leaked Defense Ministry hospital database obtained exclusively by RFE/RL indicates Savicic’s Russian military links run much deeper than those of a simple builder or volunteer recruiter: He is listed as a colonel with the military intelligence agency known as the GRU.

Savicic, who was hit with British sanctions in November for “destabilizing Ukraine,” is among the hundreds of foreign fighters listed in the more than 165,000 individual records in the database, which offers an unprecedented glimpse at the scope of casualties Moscow has sustained since launching its full-scale invasion three years ago.

How Many Foreign Mercenaries Has Russia Recruited?

There’s no definitive estimate of all the foreign nationals who have served in Russia’s armed forces, and the leaked database is not an exhaustive record of Russian casualties -- killed or wounded -- that Western estimates have put at more than 700,000.

But the leaked records add documented corroboration to an array of anecdotal evidence on Russia’s foreign mercenaries, some of whom signed up for the paycheck and others who say they were pressured or duped into enlisting.

An RFE/RL analysis of the hospitalization records found that foreign soldiers from more than a dozen countries -- including Serbia, Nepal, India, China, Sri-Lanka, Cuba, and Cameroon -- were treated in Russian military hospitals between February 2022, when President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion, and mid-June 2024.

The 'Wolves' Mercenary Unit

Savicic’s entry in the database is the first known Russian government record identifying him as an officer with the GRU, whose work recruiting foreign mercenaries around the globe is only vaguely understood.

While Serbian or Bosnian Serb nationals had fought alongside Russian forces in Syria and Ukraine even before the February 2022 invasion, sometime around the end of 2021 Savicic began recruiting mercenaries into a unit he called “Wolves.”

Savicic’s unit -- which took its name from his nom de guerre, Wolf -- signed contracts with a fictitious private military company called Redut, which an RFE/RL investigation later found was a GRU front to recruit fighters for combat units.

According to the database, Savicic was treated for a shrapnel wound to his right shoulder on June 17, 2022. It’s unclear where exactly he was wounded, though at the time, Russian troops had launched an assault on Syevyerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces were counterattacking near Izyum, in the southeastern Kharkiv region.

Savicic, who did not respond to a request for comment, was discharged from a Moscow hospital on July 7, 2022, the records show.

In all, RFE/RL confirmed that at least five Serbian nationals listed in the database fought in Ukraine.

Recruitment And Coercion Of Russia's Foreign Fighters

Both Ukraine and Russia have deployed foreign fighters in the war, with Kyiv openly recruiting for its international legion and Russia using foreign soldiers to maintain force strength and streamlining citizenship for foreigners who sign up to fight.

Russia’s large migrant worker population -- seasonal workers from Central Asia, for example -- have also been aggressively targeted by recruiters or migration officials who have coerced migrants, sometimes falsely, into signing contracts to fight.

In the months that followed the February 2022 invasion, as Ukrainian troops inflicted heavier-than-expected losses on Russian forces, Russian commanders realized that new recruitment, mobilization, and conscription systems were needed to ensure a steady pipeline of men was available to replenish depleted units.

Wagner mercenaries became a visible part of the force makeup. So did the tens of thousands of prison inmates who were enticed -- first by Wagner, and later by the Defense Ministry itself -- to fight in exchange for freedom.

In September 2022, Putin ordered a partial mobilization of the country’s reserves, drawing up to 300,000 more men into the fight. Recruiters also tapped a wider pool of recruits using extraordinarily lucrative financial incentives.

In April 2024, the British Defense Ministry reported that foreigners who agreed to serve in the Russian army were promised a monthly salary of $2,200 and a Russian passport.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Zhilyayev said that some foreign fighters received up to 640,000 rubles ($7,400) a month in mid-2024 -- three times more than regular Russian soldiers. He said he learned this figure from one of the foreign soldiers.

Where Do Russia's Foreign Mercenaries Come From?

Chinese Mercenaries

Zhilyayev told RFE/RL that he met several foreign soldiers during his time with the 144th Motor Rifle Brigade in eastern Ukraine, including a Chinese mercenary who served as a sniper for eight years back home.

“After hospitalization, he was thrown into our second platoon, second company reserve battalion,” Zhilyayev said. “He didn’t speak Russian, he only knew two phrases: ‘The Russian Army is f**ked up’ and ‘Hi there, I’m f**king sick of you.’”

There were five Chinese nationals in total serving in the 254th Regiment, he said.

Another Chinese national listed in the database was 36-year-old Duan Wei, who was hospitalized in October 2023 with an array of shrapnel wounds and released the following month.

In messages with RFE/RL, Duan confirmed he was a Chinese citizen and that he fought in Ukraine, but he refused to give further details.

Nepali Mercenaries

Among the foreign nationalities whose presence in the Russian armed forces has been well-documented is Nepal. By one count, as many as 15,000 Nepali men have signed up since the invasion, attracted by salaries that dwarf local wages, plus the promise of a Russian passport.

The hospitalization database reveals that at least several dozen Nepali soldiers were treated in military medical facilities. Some of them posted photographs and videos to their social media accounts, including Private Pahari Prakash, who fought in the 98th Airborne Division and posted a video chronology of his time at war on his TikTok account.

Prakash, 43, was wounded in January 2023 somewhere in Ukraine, according to the leaked database, and evacuated by helicopter to a medical unit in the Moscow region for the amputation of one of his feet. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful.

Zhilyayev recalled one company of Nepali fighters who served in the 283rd Reserve Battalion, a unit he called “unmanageable.”

“Officers told me that even if they were addressed in English, they wouldn’t follow orders. They just did some kind of hodgepodge nonsense and went back and forth,” he said.

One glaring example of how poorly incorporated Nepali troops were, Zhilyayev said, came on January 20, 2024, when a Nepali unit was deployed and confronted another Russian unit that demanded a password as an operational security measure. But the Nepali unit did not speak Russian, and a gunfight ensued in which three soldiers were wounded, he said.

While in the hospital, Prakash posted videos to his TikTok account that showed other foreign nationals, including a Cuban man and a Ghanaian man whom he called his “best friend.”

“In the Russian Army, we are all like one,” reads the caption to the video.

Another Nepali soldier, Ramchandra Khadka, is also listed in the database, having served as a private assigned to a Russian military base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia where Russia has a contingent of forces. He was wounded in late 2023 after fighting near Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that was captured by Russian forces in May 2023.

Khadka told CNN last year that he joined the Russian military due to the lack of job opportunities in Nepal but that he regretted his decision.

“In hindsight, it wasn’t the right decision,” Khadka said. “We didn’t realize we would be sent to the front lines that quickly and how horrible the situation would be.”

Indian Mercenaries

Indians also comprise a visible number of wounded soldiers treated in military hospitals, the leaked records show. Gupreet Singh, a 21-year-old private assigned to a territorial defense unit of the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment, was hospitalized in April 2024, having suffered what appeared to be a blood clot that partially paralyzed him.

A month earlier, an Indian newspaper cited Singh’s family as saying that he had been forced into signing a military contract while vacationing in Russia during the New Year holidays.

In September, Singh reportedly returned home to India, telling local villagers he had escaped from the hospital where he had been treated.

Last month, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said more than 125 Indian nationals have fought in Russia, most of whom claim they were tricked into signing contracts. Of that, 12 are confirmed dead, and 16 are missing, the ministry said.

Hundreds of people listed in the leaked database have apparent Latino or Hispanic names. Many of those are Cubans who have enlisted, or been coerced into enlisting, in the Russian military.

Cuban Mercenaries

As many as 5,000 Cubans may be fighting alongside Russian troops, according to one Cuban researcher.

Until last year, one of those fighting alongside Russian troops was Frank Dario Yarossey Manfuga, a 36-year-old schoolteacher who joined in January 2024 and served until he was captured by Ukrainian forces three months later.

In an interview with Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Manfuga said he was tricked into signing a contract that he didn’t understand.

“I never intended to kill anyone. I never wanted to take part in the war,” Manfuga said. “I have a family.”