When an unemployed father of three received a phone call in July, asking if he wanted to do a yearlong bodyguard training program in Russia, he says he jumped at the opportunity.
He said the woman on the other line identified herself as a daughter of Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s former president. He said she told him that after completing the program, he would be given a job working security for her father’s political party, for which she held a seat in Parliament.
But within six weeks of arriving in Russia, the man, 46, sensed that something was off. His supposed bodyguard trainers gave him military fatigues and a rifle and took him to the southern city of Rostov. A short time later, he said, he was on the front line of the war in Ukraine, sleeping in trenches in mud-soaked battlefields in the Donbas region and surrounded by tanks, drones and raging gunfire.
“We had been lied to,” said the man, who said he was still stuck in Russia and requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “There was no bodyguard training. We were going to war.”
Seventeen South Africans have sent distress signals to their government this month asking to be rescued from the grinding battle in Ukraine, according to the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Mr. Ramaphosa has announced an investigation into how the men ended up there, and an elite police unit says it is looking into criminal charges against Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, Mr. Zuma’s daughter, who has been accused by one of her own sisters of tricking the men into joining the Russian battle.
The scandal has exposed a rift among the Zumas, one of South Africa’s best-known political families. The sister filed a criminal complaint against Ms. Zuma-Sambudla, accusing her of handing the men over to a Russian mercenary group without their knowledge or consent, according to the police.
The sister, Nkosazana Bonganini Zuma-Mncube, said in a statement that she had a “moral obligation” to inform the authorities about Ms. Zuma-Sambudla’s involvement in the scandal. Eight of her own family members had been “lured to Russia under false pretenses and handed to a Russian mercenary group to fight in the Ukraine war without their knowledge or consent,” Ms. Zuma-Mncube said in her statement.
The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second-largest political party, also filed a criminal complaint against Ms. Zuma-Sambudla, alleging that she had participated in the illegal trafficking of the South Africans who ended up in Russia. Democratic Alliance officials presented images of what they described as text message exchanges between Ms. Zuma-Sambudla and some of the men.
Ms. Zuma-Sambudla did not respond to requests for comment, but on Tuesday she filed her own police complaint alleging fraud, according to the police. On Friday, uMkhonto weSizwe, or Spear of the Nation, the political party led by the father, announced that Ms. Zuma-Sambudla had resigned from her seat as a result of the investigation.
South African law criminalizes serving in a foreign military without the government’s approval. Mr. Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement this month that the men “were lured to join mercenary forces involved in the Ukraine-Russia war under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts.”
Ms. Zuma-Sambudla has long been a lightning rod in South Africa. She is currently on trial for treason, related to deadly riots across the country in 2021. Her father has close ties to the Russian government, and Ms. Zuma-Sambudla has expressed support for the country on social media.
Ukraine has accused Russia of using subterfuge to recruit fighters from across Africa, where many governments have close ties with the Kremlin dating to the Soviet Union’s support for various African independence movements.
Andrii Sybiha, the foreign minister for Ukraine, posted on social media this month that more than 1,400 citizens from 36 African countries were fighting for Russia, figures that could not be independently verified.
The 46-year-old South African, who spoke to The New York Times via text and voice notes, said he had trusted the trip to Russia would be legitimate because he believed that Ms. Zuma-Sambudla had personally assured him everything would be fine. He said he had been told that, after the training, he would get a job as a bodyguard for uMkhonto weSizwe.
A South African man who said his brother was recruited by Ms. Zuma-Sambudla told The Times that he had tried to reach her but that she had been unavailable since his brother was taken to the battlefield. The man, who also requested anonymity out of fear for his brother’s safety, said his brother told him the recruits were asked to sign a document consenting to military service under contract in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
During a news conference on Friday, officials with uMkhonto weSizwe insisted that the party had no involvement in the recruitment of the men, and that Ms. Zuma-Sambudla had not implicated the party in her affidavit to the police alleging fraud.
The police did not elaborate on Ms. Zuma-Sambudla’s allegations of fraud and she has not spoken publicly about her complaint. A local news outlet reported that Ms. Zuma-Sambudla claims in her affidavit to have been manipulated into participating in a recruitment program she thought was lawful and safe.
The 46-year-old father of three sent The Times a photo of a military service certificate written in Russian with his picture on it. It describes him as a driver in a howitzer artillery platoon participating in Russia’s “special military operation” on Ukrainian territory, including Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. He said he had been pulled back from the front line but was told he would receive more military training soon. He is no longer in the Donbas region, he said.
“We don’t want to die here,” he said. “I am a shell of a human being, physically spent. It is complete misery.”
John Eligon contributed reporting.
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