17 hours agoShareSaveNawal Al-Maghafi,Senior international investigations correspondentandSheida Kiran,BBC Eye InvestigationsShareSaveFlames lick around the edges of Omar’s passport. “It’s burning well,” an unseen woman says in Russian in the video.Omar, a 26-year-old Syrian construction worker, had been deployed for about nine months on the front line of Russia’s war in Ukraine when the clip arrived on his phone.He knew the woman’s voice. It was Polina Alexandrovna Azarnykh, who he says had helped him sign up to fight for Russia, promising lucrative work and Russian citizenship. But now she was angry.In a series of voice notes from Ukraine, Omar, speaking under a pseudonym for his safety, describes how he ended up trapped and terrified in the war zone.He says Azarnykh had promised that if he paid her $3,000 (£2,227), she would ensure he stayed in a non-combat role. But, he says, he was sent into battle with just 10 days of training, so he refused to pay and she eventually responded by burning his passport.He says he tried refusing to take part in a mission, but his commanders threatened to kill or jail him.”We were tricked… this woman is a con artist and a liar,” says Omar.TelegramA BBC Eye investigation has followed how Azarnykh, a 40-year-old former teacher, uses a Telegram channel to lure young men, often from poor countries, into joining Russia’s military.The former teacher’s smiling video messages and upbeat posts offer “one-year contracts” for “military service”.The BBC World Service has identified nearly 500 cases where she has provided documents, referred to as invitations, which allow the recipient to enter Russia to join the military. These have been for men – mainly from Syria, Egypt and Yemen – who appear to have sent her their passport details in order to enlist.But recruits and their relatives have told the BBC that she misled men into believing they would avoid combat, failed to make clear they could not leave after a year and threatened those who challenged her. When contacted by the BBC, she rejected the allegations.Twelve families told us of young men they say were recruited by her who are now dead or missing.TelegramDomestically, Russia has expanded conscription, recruited prisoners and offered increasingly generous sign-up bonuses to maintain its operation in Ukraine, despite substantial losses.More than one million of its soldiers have been killed or wounded since the full-scale invasion in 2022, with 25,000 killed in the month of December 2025 alone, according to Nato.Research by BBC News Russian, based on obituaries and other publicly available death records, suggests Russian troop losses in Ukraine rose faster than ever last year.It is difficult to determine how many foreigners have joined Russia’s military. BBC Russian’s analysis – which also looked at the number of foreigners killed and injured – suggests at least 20,000 may have signed up, including from countries such as Cuba, Nepal and North Korea.Ukraine has suffered significant troop losses too, and has also taken foreign fighters into its ranks.’Bodies everywhere’Omar’s first contact with Azarnykh was when he was stranded with barely any money at a Moscow airport in March 2024, together with 14 other Syrians.Jobs in Syria were scarce and low paid. Omar says a recruiter there had offered the men what they understood to be civilian work guarding oil facilities in Russia. They flew to Moscow, only to learn they had been scammed.Searching online for options, Omar says, one of the group found Azarnykh’s channel and messaged her.She met them at the airport within hours, and took them by train to a recruitment centre in Bryansk, western Russia, he says.There, he says, she offered them one-year contracts with the Russian army, with a monthly salary equivalent to about $2,500 (£1,856), and a sign-up payment of $5,000 (£3,711) – sums they could only dream of in Syria.Omar says the contracts were in Russian, which none of the men understood, and she took their passports, promising to arrange Russian citizenship. She also promised they could avoid combat roles if they paid her $3,000 (£2,227) each from their sign-up payments, he says.Roman Chop/Global Images Ukraine via Getty ImagesBut, he says, within about a month, he was on the front line with, he says, just 10 days’ training and no military experience.”We’re 100% going to die here,” he says in one of his voice notes, sent to the BBC investigative team.”A lot of injuries, a lot of explosions, a lot of shelling. If you don’t die from the explosion, you’ll die from the debris landing on you,” he says in May 2024.”Dead bodies everywhere… I’ve stepped on dead bodies, God forgive me,” he reports the following month.”If someone dies, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, they put him in a rubbish bag and throw him next to a tree,” he adds.After nearly a year, he had discovered what he says Azarnykh had failed to explain – a 2022 Russian decree essentially allows the military to extend soldiers’ contracts automatically until the war ends.”If they renew the contract, I’m screwed – oh God,” he says.His contract was continued.’Recruited from university’Azarnykh’s Telegram channel has 21,000 subscribers. Her posts have often told readers wanting to apply to join the Russian military to send her a scan of their passport. She has then posted invitation documents, sometimes with a list of names of the men they are for.The BBC has identified …
