Nearly 13,000 Central Asians in Russian army – media

Nearly 13,000 citizens of Central Asia are currently serving or have served in the Russian army in the war against Ukraine, according to the “Ukraine–Central Asia” project by independent journalist Grigory Pirlík.

The report states that the data was provided in response to the journalist’s request by the “I Want to Live” project, which deals with issues related to Russian soldiers taken prisoner.

According to the published data, the identities of 12,666 Central Asian citizens have been established by name. Of these:

• 4,853 are citizens of Uzbekistan;
• 3,407 are citizens of Tajikistan;
• 2,389 are citizens of Kazakhstan;
• 1,439 are citizens of Kyrgyzstan;
• 578 are citizens of Turkmenistan.

It is noted that in 2025, the “I Want to Live” project twice published lists of Uzbek citizens who had signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense to fight in Ukraine.

• In May, the list included 1,110 Uzbek nationals.
• In July, a new list contained 902 names.

Thus, by July last year, the project had information on 2,012 Uzbek citizens who had signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Between July 2025 and January 2026, the project identified an additional 2,841 individuals holding Uzbek passports who were involved in the war.

For reference, the “I Want to Live” project was established by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the Main Intelligence Directorate. Over the past three years, dozens of citizens in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have been convicted for participating in the war in Ukraine, receiving prison sentences ranging from three to five years. Tajikistan has not prosecuted participants in the conflict, while no official information is available from Turkmenistan.

According to the Ukrainian side, Central Asian citizens are often used as infantry and deployed directly to frontline assaults. Some migrants from the region have also reported being pressured by Russian law enforcement to sign military contracts.

In particular, in 2025, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, stated that law enforcement had detained nearly 80,000 migrants who had obtained Russian citizenship, of whom around 20,000 were sent to fight in Ukraine. He said regular raids are conducted in cooperation with the Interior Ministry and the National Guard to identify foreign nationals who have obtained citizenship but are not registered for military service.

It is worth noting that in October 2025, the “I Want to Live” project published the names of 481 Uzbek citizens who were killed or went missing while serving in the Russian Armed Forces in the war against Ukraine.