Nepal Authorities Detain Recruiters For Russian Army Amidst Ongoing War With Ukraine

They took huge sums of money from unemployed young people for tourist visas to the Russian Federation.

Nepal police have detained ten men who charged unemployed youths huge sums of money for tourist visas and then sent them for illegal recruitment into the Russian army.

This has been reported by Reuters.

Kathmandu district police chief Bhupendra Khatri said ten people were in police custody after being detained over the past few days.

“We are discussing the case with government lawyers and will take them to court,” Khatri told Reuters.

Khatri said the detainees illegally took up to $9,000 from each person and sent them to Russia on tourist visas, mainly through the UAE. They were then sent to the Russian army.

“This is a case of human smuggling... organized crime,” Khatri added.

Recruitment of Nepalese people

Nepal this week demanded Moscow not recruit its citizens into the Russian army and send all Nepalese soldiers back to the Himalayan country after six of its citizens serving in the Russian army were killed.

Nepal, located between China and India, has asked Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, to pay compensation to the families of slain Nepalese citizens.

Nepalese soldiers called Gurkhas have served the British and Indian armies since India's independence in 1947 under an agreement between the three countries. There is no such agreement with Russia.

Millions of Nepalese are employed in civilian jobs — mostly as workers on industrial plants and construction sites — in South Korea, Malaysia and the Middle East.