From: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Azattyq Asia and RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service
Summary
- The Ukrainian project “I Want To Live” estimates thousands of Central Asians have joined Russian forces, often lured by lucrative job offers or coerced.
- Poverty, unemployment, and Russian propaganda are key factors driving Central Asians to fight in Ukraine, according to experts.
Sundet Pernebek moved to Russia last year to take up a new lucrative job that would allow him to pay for his wedding.
But in May, the 26-year-old native of Kazakhstan appeared on a list of foreigners killed fighting for Russia in its nearly four-year-long war in Ukraine.
His name was published by the state-sponsored Ukrainian project — I Want To Live — which identifies foreigners fighting alongside Russian forces.
“For about five or six months after my son went to Russia, he would regularly call his mother,” Pernebek’s father, Bauyrzhan, told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service.
“During our last phone call, he said, ‘I’m going to work in a forested area for 10 days and there is poor connection there, so don’t worry [if I don’t call]. We didn’t hear from him ever again.”
Pernebek’s parents contacted the Kazakh Embassy in Moscow to help find their son but did not get any answers. They said he had been offered a well-paying job in Russia, and do not know how he ended up in Ukraine.
Pernebek’s father said the family held a symbolic funeral for his son. But he said he will not give up looking for him.
“We prayed for him, we held his funeral,” he said. “But until I see him with my own eyes and lay him to rest myself, I will not stop searching.”
Voice of Ukraine 