{"id":8108,"date":"2026-04-04T04:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T04:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/8108\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T04:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T04:15:37","slug":"kallas-takes-aim-at-russias-unethical-army-recruiting-in-africa-during-ghana-trip-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/8108\/","title":{"rendered":"Kallas takes aim at Russia\u2019s \u2018unethical\u2019 army recruiting in Africa during Ghana trip \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas took aim at Russia\u2019s \u201cunethical\u201d efforts to recruit young Africans to fight in Ukraine on false\u00a0pretences\u00a0as she unveiled a new\u00a0defence\u00a0pact with Ghana on Tuesday (24 March).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kallas described the war in Ukraine as \u201can existential threat to Europe\u201d but pointed to the plight of hundreds of Africans who have found themselves serving on the frontline.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A report by the <a href=\"https:\/\/alleyesonwagner.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Eyes on Wagner<\/a> (AEOW) investigative group, published in February, listed 1,417 fighters from 35 African countries who had joined the Russian army between 2023 and mid-2025, 316 of whom have been killed.\u00a0Ghana\u2019s West African\u00a0neighbour\u00a0Cameroon\u00a0has suffered the highest losses: 94 of its 335 recruits have been killed\u00a0during Russia\u2019s war in\u00a0Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There have been repeated reports of Russia recruiting young African men, typically in their 20s, often by offering jobs in factories or the hospitality sector in exchange for visas or Russian citizenship, before sending them swiftly to the front line in Ukraine after they sign contracts with the Russian army.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0\u201cunethical recruitment of African\u00a0nationals\u00a0preys on economic hardship. Your citizens should not be lured into a war that is not theirs,\u201d said Kallas at a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eeas.europa.eu\/eeas\/high-representative-vice-president-kaja-kallas-accra-ghana_en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">joint press conference and\u00a0signing ceremony<\/a> with Ghanaian officials in Accra on Tuesday (24 March).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ghana has been part of\u00a0an\u00a0EU\u00a0security and\u00a0defence\u00a0initiative\u00a0in\u00a0the Gulf of Guinea,\u00a0on the West African coast\u00a0since 2023. The mission\u00a0aims to empower and\u00a0assist\u00a0Ivory Coast, Ghana,\u00a0Togo\u00a0and Benin to\u00a0\u201cstrengthen their security and\u00a0defence\u00a0capabilities to respond to security threats and to tackle the spillover of insecurity from the Sahel to the West African coastal states,\u201d says the EU executive.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas took aim at Russia\u2019s \u201cunethical\u201d efforts to recruit young Africans to fight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[140],"tags":[280,359,7725,301,2400,7728,442,7723,2398,7726,299,357,7724,2399,7727,300,358],"class_list":["post-8108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kaja-kallas","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier24","tag-identifier26","tag-identifier4308","tag-identifier4391","tag-identifier4582","tag-kaja-kallas","tag-nameafrica","tag-namedefence","tag-nameghana","tag-namerussia","tag-nameukraine","tag-termcodeafrica","tag-termcodedefence","tag-termcodeghana","tag-termcoderussia","tag-termcodeukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116344502612902807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}