In the past, Syrians were recruited with financial promises by Turkey and Russia for foreign wars, for instance, in Azerbaijan and Africa. Now, there are reports that an estimated 3,000 Iraqis were recruited by Russia for salaries between $2,000 and $3,000. An unknown number of them have already been killed. The recruitment of Iraqis for Russia’s war in Ukraine shows how conflicts increasingly become more global.
Independent Arabia news website reported that some young Iraqi men volunteered to fight with the Russian army, while others were lured and deceived with promises of migration to Europe, only to find themselves inside training camps in Russia.
In December 2025, Iraq’s National Security Advisor, Qasim al-Araji, also confirmed that hundreds of Iraqis were fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war. According to a report of Independent Arabia, incentives include lucrative salaries of up to $3,000, and upon completion of the one-year contract with the Russian army, the fighter is discharged if he wishes, receiving a monthly salary, health insurance, a Russian passport, and an apartment. According to a 2023 report by Numbeo, the average salary in Iraq is $549.”My husband dreamed of migrating to Europe. Someone convinced him to get a visa to Russia and then go to Belarus to move on to Europe. His ordeal began when this person helped him get the visa, only for him to end up in a Russian camp,” the wife of a fighter in the Russian army told Independent Arabia.
A number of Iraqi Kurds have also signed up for Russia’s war. For instance, Rudaw reported on 6 February that the 22-year-old Matin Wahab from Soran died and was supposed to be sent to Bakhmut in Ukraine. His family members said that he was deceived under their promise of work, and his father said Matin Wahab immediately agreed after they promised a salary of $2,000 per month.
Rudaw also reported that Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Arabs were in fact fighting on both sides in the war. Although I haven’t seen any proof yet of Iraqis joining the Ukrainian army, there are unverified media reports that around 2,000–3,000 Iraqis joined the Ukrainian army. When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war to take Ukraine in February 2022, I already heard locals in Iraqi Kurdistan, such as taxi drivers, talking about being ready to fight with the Ukrainian army against the Russian invading forces, as long as they would get residency in Ukraine and a way to get out of Iraq. They hoped that through such ways, they could also eventually get to the EU. However, Ukraine has not actively recruited any Iraqis so far.
There are also marriage links between Iraqis and Ukrainians and Russians. There are Iraqis, including Kurds, who are already married to Ukrainian women, and in February 2022, Ukrainian women protested against Russia’s war on Ukraine in front of the UN in Erbil in the Kurdistan Region. There are also Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who married Russian women when they went to Russia with the Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani in the late 1940s.
It is not a surprise that Iraqi Kurds are trying to find ways to escape Iraq, due to the unstable political and economic conditions (including high youth unemployment in the countryside of the Kurdistan Region). Furthermore, Baghdad has regularly cut the government budget to the Kurdistan Region, and since 2023, it has not fully disbursed salary allocations for public-sector employees in the Kurdistan Region.
According to the Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs, over 760,000 people have migrated from Iraq and the KRI since 2015, with Rudaw reporting around 20,000 individuals migrating in 2023 alone.
For instance, also in 2021, hundreds of Iraqis, many of them Kurds, headed to Belarus and camped at the border with Poland, seeking to cross the border into the European Union. In the end, European pressure stopped Baghdad from allowing Iraqis to go to Belarus, and Belarusian government offices were closed in Erbil and Baghdad. At that time, it seemed that Belarus was using the migration card as a way to punish Poland for supporting the Belarusian opposition. With the Belarus route now closed, many are using the dangerous Libya route.
Nevertheless, many Iraqi Arabs have also gone to Russia to fight, although Baghdad pays regular salaries in federal Iraq, since all of Iraq suffers from youth unemployment.
In 2025, the first reports emerged in local media that Iraqis were fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine. Ukraine’s ambassador to Iraq told Rudaw on 22 February this year that Ukraine views the recruitment of Iraqis by Russia as a crime and that Kyiv is working with Baghdad to solve the issue. A diplomatic source also confirmed that the issue has drawn the attention of several EU member states.
The Russian ambassador to Baghdad has also confirmed in December last year that Iraqi nationals have been killed and wounded in Ukraine, but he underlined that the number is not large.
Telegram channels linked to Iranian-backed Iraqi armed groups have often shown sympathy for Russia’s war in Ukraine, such as Sabereen News, which uses the slogan “we will protect you from NATO’s lies if you join us.” Russia has also used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine.
However, according to Mohammed Salih, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and expert on Kurdish and regional affairs, the recruitment has nothing to do with ideology, only with financial reasons.
“There is no, you know, common ideological thread between the Russian military and the average Iraqi, and most of these Iraqis are Shia from the south of Iraq. It’s mostly for financial reasons, from what I understand. You know, they get paid quite well, about $2,500 to 3,000 a month, and they apparently get a good sign-up bonus, and they are being told that if they die in battle, you know, their families will receive generous compensations, which I’m not sure if they’re receiving after their death.”
He also added that there are a lot of people who are desperate, who have no prospects or jobs in Iraq.
“This just seems to be a way of making money. It’s highly dangerous, but I guess you know, if you’re that desperate, you will be pushed by circumstances to do anything.”
He also said there is evidence that some people have been lured to Russia for other reasons, such as scholarships to study there. Salih also mentioned the case of the wedding singer Hussein al-Turki. The 964 media outlet reported in December that al-Turki was offered a contract by a tourism company in Iraq to perform concerts in Moscow for four months in exchange for $16,000, but later found himself on the frontlines of Ukraine and called on the Iraqi government to stop the rescue of those who were misled.
Yet, he added that “there is some unconfirmed suspicion that some of the pro-Iran Shia militias or individuals close to them might have played some role in facilitating the sending of Iraqis to Russia to participate in the war with Ukraine.”According to a statement from the Supreme Judicial Council head, Faiq Zidan, the Iraqi law punishes anyone who joins a foreign force without approval of the Iraqi government, and a committee is working to save Iraqis from death. Iraq will also take actions against networks recruiting Iraqis to fight abroad. The Najaf criminal court in September last year sentenced an Iraqi man to life in prison for trafficking people to Russia to fight in the war against Ukraine.
To conclude, it seems that the recruitment of Iraqis by Russia is mostly related to financial incentives, youth employment, and the hopes of Iraqis to gain a foreign nationality to go to Europe. However, now that the topic has gained the attention of the Iraqi government, it is likely that the intensity of such recruitment will decrease, and it will be more difficult to recruit Iraqis after the attention it has received in the Iraqi media.
