UGANDA MERCENERIES FIGHTING ALONG SIDE RUSSIAN FORCES IN UKRAINE
BY OUR WRITER
KAMPALA
UGANDANS fighters have been sighted along side a
large detachment of African mercenaries who have joined hands with Russian army.
Fighters believed to be from Uganda were over the weekend filmed in a winter-like battlefield believed to be eastern Ukraine where Russia is pushing hard to capture the entire region.
According to Uganda’s Media , the Chimpreports which usually break security stories, the fighters were seen and heard singing Ugandan military songs .
According to reports, the songs were mostly those that were composed by the NRA guerrilla fighters during the 1980-86 bush war that brought President Museveni to power.
While singing, one of the combatants says ‘Kaweddemu’, a Luganda phrase widely used especially in Kampala to indicate that a situation or problem has ended or ‘it is over.’
Many questions have been raised about how they were recruited, deployed and whether the Ugandan government is aware of or involved in their presence on the battlefield in Eastern Europe.
A few days ago, Ukrainian Defenders of the 63rd Mechanized Brigade captured a Ugandan named Richard Akantorana, who, according to him, was forced to fight on the Russian side.
In a video recorded following his capture, Akantorana shared that he took a loan from a sacco to buy a plane ticket to Russia after someone offered him good-paying jobs in the supermarket, factory, or working as a guard at the airport.
He said that upon arriving in Balashikha, he was told he had only two choices – to sign a contract with the Russian military or die from a bullet to the head.
“I am Akantorana Richard, I was born in 1982, I am a Ugandan. I have two daughters and a wife. I used to work as a cleaner in a supermarket, sometimes a boda boda cyclist. In the supermarket, they paid me 50 [dollars] per month. Somebody found me on the street and said there are some jobs in Russia. Jobs to work in the supermarket, factory, jobs to work as a security guard at the airport. I said okay,” Akantorana narrated.
This, he said compelled him to acquire a loan from a sacco to facilitate his travel to Russia. He said they were four in total.
“I didn’t know we were going to Balashikha. Me I knew we were going the supermarket. They said, you have entered here but sorry guys, you are joining Russian what, military. We told them that this is not what brought us here. They said, there is nothing you can do. You can’t cross the gate. They put us on gunpoint and said you sign these papers,” he narrated.
Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region or Russia will seize it by force.
“Either we liberate these territories by force, or Ukrainian troops will leave these territories,” he said.
The Russia military which invaded Ukraine in 2022, now controls some 85% of the Donbas region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out ceding territory.
As fighting intensifies on the frontline, U.S President Donald Trump has been pushing his peace plan that seems far away from settling the conflict.
Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.