Kharkiv, Ukraine – Hushruzjon Salohidinov, 26, was working as a courier in Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest metropolis and President Vladimir Putin’s hometown.
However final yr, the Tajik man and practising Muslim says he was arrested whereas choosing up a parcel which police claimed contained cash stolen from aged ladies.
Salohidinov says he by no means interacted with the alleged criminals, however however spent 9 months within the Kresty-2 pre-trial detention centre about 32km (20 miles) from town, whereas a choose refused to start out his trial due to the “weak proof” towards him.
However as an alternative of releasing him after that, jail wardens threatened to position him in a cell with HIV-infected inmates who, they mentioned, would gang-rape him – except he “volunteered” to battle in Ukraine.
“They mentioned, ‘Oh, you’ll placed on a skirt now, you’ll be raped,’” Salohidinov, who has raven black hair and a messy full beard, informed Al Jazeera at a centre for conflict prisoners in northeastern Ukraine, the place he’s now being held, having been captured in January this yr by Ukrainian forces.
Utilizing a carrot-and-stick tactic, the wardens additionally promised him a sign-up bonus of two million rubles ($26,200), a month-to-month wage of 200,000 rubles ($2,620) and an amnesty from all convictions.
So, within the autumn of 2025, Salohidinov signed up as he “noticed no different means out”.
Officers in Kresty-2, St Petersburg’s prosecutors’ workplace and Russia’s Ministry of Defence didn’t reply to any of Al Jazeera’s requests for remark.
‘Catching migrants’
Salohidinov is only one of tens of 1000’s of labour migrants from Central Asia coerced by Russia to turn into troopers as a part of the Kremlin’s nationwide marketing campaign, in line with human rights teams, media experiences and Russian officers.
Hochu Jit, a Ukrainian group that helps Russian troopers give up, has printed verified lists of 1000’s of Central Asian troopers like Salohidinov.
“They’re actually despatched to be killed, nobody considers them troopers that should be saved,” the group wrote in a 2025 submit on Telegram. These troopers’ life expectancy on the entrance line is about 4 months. “Losses amongst them are catastrophic,” the group reported.
With its low birthrate and huge oil wealth, Russia has for years been a magnet for hundreds of thousands of labour migrants from ex-Soviet Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The marketing campaign by the Kremlin to pressure Central Asians to battle in Ukraine dates again to 2023 – the yr after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – when police started rounding up anybody who didn’t look Slavic and charging them with actual or imagined transgressions reminiscent of a scarcity of registration, expired or “pretend” permits or blurred stamps on their paperwork. Typically, migrants are merely bused straight to conscription places of work.
In 2025, Al Jazeera interviewed one other Tajik man who mentioned he had been detained with an expired work allow and was then tortured into “volunteering” whereas being subjected to numerous xenophobic and Islamophobic slurs from his officers.
Migrants say they’re abused, tortured and threatened with jail or having their complete households deported.
“The primary means of recruiting as many migrants as doable is strain on them with threats of deportation,” Alisher Ilkhamov, the Uzbekistan-born head of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence suppose tank, informed Al Jazeera.
Typically, migrants are merely duped.
Salohidinov mentioned one serviceman in his squad was an Uzbek who “didn’t converse a phrase of Russian” and was fooled into “volunteering” whereas signing papers at a migration centre.
Of their experiences about “catching” migrants, officers continuously use derogatory phrases about them, and in addition once they describe males who’ve obtained Russian passports however skipped registration at conscription places of work. For the reason that Soviet period, such registration has been compulsory for all males and, since 2024, a newly naturalised Russian nationwide can lose his citizenship if he fails to do it.
“We’ve caught 80,000 such Russian residents, who don’t simply need to go to the entrance line, they don’t even need to go to a conscription workplace,” chief prosecutor Alexander Bastrykin mentioned in Could 2025, referring to the migrants’ alleged patriotic sentiments.
He boasted that 20,000 Central Asians with Russian passports had been herded to the entrance line in 2025.
The yr earlier than, he mentioned 10,000 Central Asians had been despatched to Ukraine.
Such remarks resonate with the Russian public that lives with “a excessive stage of xenophobia within the stage of concern and helplessness,” Sergey Biziyukin, an exiled opposition activist from the western metropolis of Ryazan, informed Al Jazeera.
“For them, such phrases from Bastrykin are a type of sedative.”
What makes Central Asians straightforward targets is that they hail from police states, which depend upon Moscow politically and economically, observers say.
“Whereas the migrants are frightened into signing contracts, their motherland doesn’t actually pay any consideration,” Galiya Ibragimova, an Uzbekistan-born, Moldova-based regional knowledgeable, informed Al Jazeera.
Regardless of hefty signup bonuses and relentless propaganda, the variety of Russians who need to battle in Ukraine fell by a minimum of one-fifth this yr, and Moscow will try to recruit extra Central Asians, she mentioned.
‘We’ll have our fingers damaged’
After signing the contract and leaving his debit card together with his sign-up bonus together with his mother and father, Salohidinov was despatched to the western metropolis of Voronezh for 3 weeks of coaching that did little to arrange him for the conflict.
“We simply saved working forwards and backwards with weapons,” he mentioned.
Their drill sergeants, he says, informed the conscripts that the standard-issue flak jackets, helmets, boots and flashlights had been of subpar high quality and urged them to pitch in 1,000,000 rubles ($13,100) every for “higher” gear.
The incident corroborates experiences on dozens of comparable circumstances in Russian army models.
Salohidinov was ordered to work in a kitchen – and was verbally abused and crushed for the slightest transgression.
Of 28 males in his unit, 21 had been Muslims – however their ethnic Russian officers ignored their pleas to not have pork in meals, repeating a decades-old follow of ignoring religion-related dietary restrictions relationship again to the Soviet military.
The commanders demonised Ukrainians, telling them “that if we give up, we’d be tortured, have our fingers damaged, maimed, get [construction] foam up our a**, have our enamel yanked out one after the other, have our arms damaged”, Salohidinov says.
In early January this yr, the conscripts had been bused to the Russia-occupied Ukrainian area of Luhansk.
Salohidinov says he was drained, frightened and disoriented – Ukrainian drones had been “at all times” above them and a grenade explosion close by broken his left eardrum.
‘Glad I received captured’
On the fourth day of his service, Salohidinov was ordered to run past Ukrainian positions as a part of Russia’s new tactic to ship two or three servicemen to infiltrate the porous entrance line.
The mission was suicidal as a result of the terrain was open, dotted with landmines and the our bodies of lifeless Russian troopers, whereas Ukrainians had been firing machineguns and flew drones above them.
“I ran and ran and noticed we had been being shot at,” he mentioned. “Me and my commander determined to give up voluntarily as an alternative of dying for nothing.”
They indifferent their assault rifles’ magazines, raised their fingers and yelled they had been surrendering.
What adopted was “a relaxed feeling, lovely”, he mentioned. “They fed us, allow us to have a smoke, gave us meals and water and even cake.”
Now, Salohidinov hopes to return to Tajikistan and panics on the considered being made a part of a prisoner swap – these have taken place a number of occasions every year – and returning to Russia as a result of he could be despatched again to the entrance line.
Tajikistan and different Central Asian nations have by no means endorsed Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, however nor have they freely criticised it.
In August 2025, Tajikistan’s Prosecutor Basic Habibullo Vohidzoda declared that no Tajik nationwide could be charged for combating in Ukraine.
So, what Salohidinov wants proper now’s an extradition request.
“I’m even glad that I received captured, as a result of I’m not combating anybody now, not risking something,” he mentioned. “I’ll even say because of Ukraine for taking me prisoner.”
The Tajik embassy in Kyiv didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s request for remark.
