Russia targeted South African video gamers as part of a recruitment drive for its war in Ukraine, according to documents involving two men who left to fight.

The men in their 20s left South Africa in July last year after talking about joining the Russian military to a gamer over an app called Discord, based on email exchanges with diplomats by a friend seeking information on their whereabouts and wellbeing.

The South Africans regularly used Discord while playing the military game Arma 3, a person familiar with how they were recruited said, asking not to be identified. Within weeks of signing a military contract near St. Petersburg, a medical certificate showed one of them was killed fighting in Ukraine, according to the person.

The recruitment of soldiers for Russia has caused a scandal in South Africa in recent weeks. Fighting for or assisting the military of a foreign country has been illegal in the country since 1998.

On November 20, Bloomberg reported that a daughter of former President Jacob Zuma was involved in recruiting men from Botswana and South Africa for Russian military service. They had allegedly been told they would be going on a bodyguard training course.

In late November, a female South African state radio presenter was arrested together with four men on allegations she was recruiting them for the Russian military. They have since been charged with breaking the law, released on bail and will next appear in court on February 10. They have made no public statements.

Consulate Visit

The two gamers joined the war in Ukraine in 2024. After discussions with a person who identified themselves on the Discord app as @Dash, the South Africans met up in Cape Town before visiting the Russian consulate, according to emails and the person familiar with what happened. Discord has been restricted in Russia since October 2024.

The two left for Russia via the United Arab Emirates on July 29. After arriving in Russia, they met @Dash and signed one-year military contracts in early September, the person familiar with the situation said.

The South African presidency and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation didn’t respond to questions about the recruitment and the potential involvement of the Russian consulate.

The Russian embassy and the Russian consulate in Cape Town didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. Repeated calls to the Cape Town consulate were not answered. The press service for Discord didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.

After a few weeks of basic training, one of the men went to the front line in Ukraine where he served as a marksman’s assistant to the grenade launcher, a copy of his contract showed, according to the person familiar with the situation. He was last in contact with his family on October 6 and his friend told them on December 17 he had been killed in action. The other man’s whereabouts are unknown.

A medical certificate dated January 10 of last year that was obtained by his family showed that he had died in active service on October 23, 2024, in Verkhnekamenskoye, a location in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, the person said.

In addition to what they saw as lucrative military contracts, the two South Africans were told they could potentially get Russian citizenship and further their education if they served in the military, the person said.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, leading to a manpower shortage.

Kenya’s foreign minister said in November as many as 200 of the country’s citizens were fighting for Russia and there have been reports of Russia recruiting soldiers in nations such as Cameroon and Burkina Faso. None of those have been through the use of a gaming communications app.